Good Friendships, Great Health

I consider myself blessed to have many friends from different parts of my life.  Sacred Heart, Alleghany, Sewanee, DC, work, friends of friends, parent's friends children, family, neighbors, roommates, volunteer projects, you get my point.  Clearly, there are friends that I keep better in touch with than others, but almost every one of my friends is constantly on my mind.  I always think to call them, but I seem to find a way to put it off or send a text or write on their facebook wall to make a quick connection.

Recently, I was able to catch up with a dear college friend who had been living in Spain since we graduated from college.  It was crazy to sit down over a lunch of Tex Mex and dish out the scoop of the last five years.  It was so invigorating and so needed.  But, I also had a bit of regret that it had been almost five years since we communicated directly with one another.  The good news is: we picked up right where we left off even though our experiences over the last five years have been drastically differnt.  She was living the life of an expat in Europe, and I was working hard to promote this great country in our nation's capital. 

Last night, I went to dinner at Il Posto with another friend who I consider to be very close to me from Sacred Heart.  I hadn't talked to her in six months since we went on a walk around Audubon Park together.  Six months isn't a really long time, but it is when you live in the same city and work relatively close to one another.  Schedules and other demands on life prevent us from connecting, even when she is a quick gchat, phone call, text or drop by away. 

I write this article today because when I got home last night, I realized that a dear friend from my time at the White House passed away.  He was much older than me, tall, slender, Aruban man, who lived with a plethora of nuns in the District and spent his evenings at the Willard Hotel drinking champagne before he darted off to the South of France for a little hob nobbing twice a year.  He loved the Pope, his faith, his President, his country, and his Hermes ties that he so daintly threw over his shoulder while at work to ensure each child who wrote to the President received a response from the leader of the free world.  He was the most peculiar man in the best kind of way.  He had a zest for life, and a grand party.  Linus has been on my mind, but I never reached out to check on him, even after he listened and coached me through all of my growing pains during my time in Washington.

May this entry teach me and you a lesson to pick up the phone or seize the moment to get together with a friend when the opportunity presents itself.  Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, Executive Director of the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health and a mentor of mine, says it best in this article; reach out to a friend for no reason other than its good for your health.