Brenda is none too pleased with me (once again) and I, for one, can't blame her a bit.

I wonder why it is, that maintaining a friendship, now that I'm an adult, seems such a difficult thing to do?

High school was easy.

Other than the occasional disagreement, being friends never demanded more than you could give. You never had to slot out specific time on a calendar, to find time together.

It was spontaneous and in the moment.

Back then, there wasn't much that stood in your way of being best friends. Sure there were boys and moments of utter stupidity, but you always stuck it out together like two peas in a pod.

Expectations were easier to live up to, certain things like talking on the phone each night were taken for granted, as well as spending time away from each other, when family duties required you to be gone.

But growing up, changed the way those expectations could be met. Duties away from friendship, now required more from you, than they had ever had before and inside you were torn.

Torn.

Because you weren't ready to let a day go by, without a single phone call to your friend, to find out, all about the nothing special she did that day, or just share the common bond from being from the same place, time and understanding of having grown up together.

Soon, even the smallest distance can feel like 10,000 miles.

You don't realize it at first, the day when you start losing touch. The day when something other than your friend becomes more important in your life. You trade off outings with your new family, over your friend of old, as boyfriends become husbands and bundles of joy the focus of your attention.

You begin to promise each other tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I will call her to see is she is alright, to make sure everything is well, to talk to her and see what news she has to share. Tomorrow we will make a date, spend time together, talk like we did when we were kids sharing secrets in the dark.

Tomorrow we will promise that we'll pick up that phone, make that call, drive ourselves over to that house only a small distance away, to spend time with our friend. We make the promise expecting to keep it to ourselves, but always fall victim to constraints and obligations, that make our friend seem far less important than breaking the routine of our daily lives.

So you stop calling.

Stop making plans.

Guilt festering, over having dodged her just the week before. Feeling bad because deep down you miss your time together, but aren't as certain that you can ever get it back, the way it used to be. Realizing that it can never be, just you and her against the world, because children never disappear, though sometimes husbands do.

You forget what is was like to be irresponsible friends going out for a night on the town, for a drive to the middle of nowhere.

You forget what is was like to talk on the phone for hours about absoutely nothing and everything all at once.

You forget how much that one person reminds you of everywhere you've been, everything you've done and everything you still have left to do.

You forget how much she knows about you and how much you know about her. Forget the promise that you made to grow old together, to be the two nosey gray haired neighbor women, rocking in their chairs, watching all the young people go by.

You forget who you are, because there is no one there to remind you of how you used to be.

And so you're sorry.

Because no day without your friend, ever seems complete.