No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call on when something good happens in your life, and you need someone who will be as excited for you as you are.

Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a true and real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than she would be if whatever had happened, had happened to them. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call on when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call.

What kind of friend are you?

This comes up today, because I was thinking about a friend back in the UK, we’ve known one another since 1992. Yes, 30 years. But I’m not so sure if we have any more years on the clock because, for the very first time, I didn’t receive the usual Christmas card in the post, this year.

To say I was unsettled is an understatement. Not because I felt slighted at the time, but because my first thought was for my friend, and worrying that something has happened to her. After all, neither of us is getting any younger and with COVID you never know. And, with each passing year, I ask myself will there be another one because, shit happens.

Now I’m fretting, because, thousands of miles apart, there’s no one answering my emails, and I don’t have a working phone number. I haven’t been able to contact her family or the one other friend I know we have in common. Already we’re in mid January and the more time passes, the more I think it’s just one of those things. Too much time has passed and the fact is, we’ve just drifted apart.

It’s hard losing a friend to that drift and something I will just have to accept if true. But, without knowing, I’m somewhat in limbo and that’s a feeling I don’t like.