There are a handful of friends that I've been able to keep in contact with (who I much appreciate) but there's only so much that can be expressed through a screen - be it with words or even through video chat.  Conversations are almost always "after the fact," after the situations have been mulled over 100 times in order to be articulately and calmly expressed and at that point, they've been about 90% self-solved.

It still takes effort of course to keep up this line of contact, and I've been really growing over the years in learning how to do so.  But I've found that lately there are a lot of people that I've been trying and trying with that just seem to have... forgotten.  Even the ones that I've shared a lot of life with.  It's weird, because I can't pinpoint any particular reason, and so I wonder what went wrong.  And I always draw the same conclusions - I should have been different, or better, or done more.  But like I always say, what can you do if someone wants to leave?  Absolutely nothing.

So what is there to do - just start over... again?