Keeping in Touch

I have friends from all over the world as a result of moving around different countries growing up. While I have lost touch with many of them, I manage to talk to most of them on a semi-regular basis thanks to various social networking sites, email, and other technologies. Still, it’s hard not to be with all the people I want to be with, but being able to keep in touch has helped a lot.

When I moved from Delaware, USA, to Perth, Australia, I was eleven, and the latest technological development was email. Not everyone I knew had email, and even less knew how to use it¹. Needless to say, I lost touch with all of my friends from Delaware. It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve started reconnecting with them, mostly via Facebook. Most of my friends from high school in both Perth and Chicago use Facebook now (some are using Twitter as well), so that has been immensely helpful in keeping in touch with all my friends.

Facebook and email are what I usually use to keep in touch with my friends that live overseas. For my friends that live in the US, not only do I use Facebook and email, but I also make phone calls a lot as well as send texts. I am the champion of long phone calls, as Roanne can attest to, and I think that a phone call is the next best thing if you can’t see someone in person for a face-to-face conversation. And even though I’m not a fan of texting, if there’s a special circumstance with a particular individual, I’ll break all of my texting rules and happily text away to keep in touch².

Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without all of the various methods of keeping in touch that are available these days. As much as I love to travel, I still like maintaining a connection to all the places I’ve visited and all the people I’ve met, especially those that have had a big impact on my life. Even though I may get a little slack about keeping in touch from time to time, I strive to maintain contact with all of those that are important to me, regardless of distance. After all, since there are so many options of how to keep in touch nowadays, there’s almost no excuse not to!

1. Remember, my friends and I were eleven. And while eleven year olds are coding and such now, that wasn’t the case when I was that age! [↩]
2. I don’t go as far as send texts when I am in the middle of a conversation with someone else, though. I still think that’s ridiculously rude. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.