I've touched on this subject before, but here I go again.

There was a day in the last year or two, where my husband and I had a conversation about friendships. We've gone through frustrations of "why do we have to always be the ones to visit" or "why do we always have to plan things" or "we seem to be the only ones that care about this." But I think we made those comments because we thought maybe we should feel that way, but the truth is, we don't mind. So we were having a conversation about some of our friendships and we made an active decision during that conversation.

No matter how inconvenient it seems, no matter how "one-sided" it appears, it is our job to reach out, to make plans, to visit, and not necessarily expect anything in return. Now, there are some people that we will never be good friends with, and that's fine, we won't push it. But, we have a good sense about who is worth maintaining friendships with. And we have agreed that we will continue to make this effort. Our relationships are the most important things in our lives. Now, sometimes you have to pick which ones are more important.

For the last couple of years, we have made a pretty big effort to make sure we are able to create friendships within CR, our new home, so that we can make it a good place for us to live. That has definitely meant not traveling to see other friends as much, and, frankly, we only have so much time in our lives. However, we continue to strike a pretty good balance of making sure we spend time with friends at home, further away, and of course, our family. That's not the easiest thing in the world either, because although not far, our family is a little spread out. I also recognize that this way of doing things doesn't work for everyone. My husband and I have made an active decision on this, and it works for us, because it is in both of our strengths set to maintain relationships and be givers of our time and energy. We are also both extroverts, getting our energy from others, and so although it can still be tiring to travel or host people, we thrive on it. That is not how everyone functions! For us, it works out well, and we can share our love, and get our own energy from operating this way. This is how we stay balanced and happy in our lives.