Drift of the 'Friend' ship

It is with a heavy heart that I realise that I have reached a stage in life where almost everyone I know except for my immediate family members are so busy with their lives and problems that I do not get to hear from them. 

I often recollect the wise words of my close friend Staizy regarding the importance of family. 'Whatever you do, however far you are, only your family would be eager to know what is happening in your life and stand by you in times of trouble'. Every time I hear a 'no answer' tone when I ring up some of my friends or do not receive replies to mails for ages, that's when these words start echoing in my head.

Of course, I do not entirely blame my friends. There is a lot of blame I need to take up as well as there have been times when I choose to remain aloof due to various reasons. But the fact is this, there are some who are genuinely busy in their lives and have other priorities and at the same time there are some who just take people for granted and do not take any effort to keep in touch. The 'Friend' ship has drifted off to other shores in the latter case. I have come out of my 'aloof' shell many a time only to realise that there are some people who choose never to respond back even if I take the first step in refreshing the friendship that we had once upon a time.

A few months back, I caught up with one of my close friends. We have been in touch often so we weren't catching up after ages. We chatted about the good old school and college days, our crazy work places, about long forgotten faces, etc. It was during this conversation my friend got emotional and defensive about keeping in touch with some of our common friends. Her perspective was not just the truth, it was the kind of truth that hurts. And I realised that I have been trying to not accept the truth.

So what is the truth? My friend told me - "Don't you think that these friends of ours who always have other things to do can't keep in touch because they don't want to and not because they can't?" On hearing this I kept defending all those who did fall into this category. The more I debated with her, the more convinced I got that there is some truth to what she is saying as there were a few who didn't even seem to take an effort to keep in touch. As far as some of our common friends were concerned, they seem to have other priorities or rather always have other priorities when it comes to keeping in touch. In many occasions, this trend is very noticeable and you wonder how come it was right the opposite during the 'good old days'? My friend was emotional at the mention of a very close friend who chose no longer to keep in touch. When things like these happen, one tends to think of what is true friendship? I just told her this - "Well, true friends would make an effort to keep in touch even if its after ages and when they do, let us not snub them off but at the same time not expect too much. Let's hold on to those who are almost always there to say Hi and Hello."