Friends and Neighbors...Foreign Words in the USA

    I've moved around a lot since graduating high school.  I've had what I considered a good friend or two. But why are people not willing to take the extra effort to keep in touch with their "friends" once one moves away? My grandma had friends back in Ohio she grew up with that she was in constant contact with up till the day she died. She moved to Iowa in her 20's. Why aren't people like that anymore?

    Now that I'm on facebook, I've found people I went to high school with, but I don't know them anymore. We'd gone separate ways and I'd like to think they've all changed. It would be pretty sad to be the same person you were in high school 15 years later.

   Even "friends" I'd thought I made at church...none of them even know where I am now. I tried to get in touch with several of them to no avail. You'd think at least church "families" and friends would keep in touch. Do I expect too much from the human race? I guess it is true that it's all be in it for yourself mentality these days. It's like nobody really cares. Nobody has the guts to get involved with another person's life or family. The fake "hi, how are you's" are thrown around everywhere...church, work, occasionally a store you walk into, but they are just words not meant to be taken seriously.

     I can remember when communities had "welcome wagons". It wasn't all that long ago. We had a group greet us when we moved to Audubon, Iowa. We received a basket of fruit and information on the town and some coupons to local businesses. Now, most don't even know the name of their neighbors. My husband and I are no different. In fact, we just started talking to one of our neighbors at our old place only a month before we moved! How sad is that!

     I guess instead of trying to strive to be different and unique, I'll work hard from now on to make people actually feel cared about and mean it. None of this fly by night I'll forget about you in the morning even though I pretend I care now.