The story of a text message reminding me of old friends

Last week my phone died. This is a pretty normal occurrence for me. After all, I do have an iPhone…

I plugged my phone up next to my bed and didn’t think much more about it.

After a couple hours, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. I looked at my night stand to see if I’d missed anything on my phone. To my surprise, I had 15 text messages, most from numbers I didn’t recognize.

Great, it’s another one of those stupid, “God’s not dead” groups texts that everyone was sending when that movie came out.

Nope. Come to find out, it was a friend of mine from college who had changed phone numbers and wanted to let everyone know. The other numbers in the message were friends from college who I’d lost contact with. I read through the conversation to catch up. I finally jumped in when I had come up with the perfect, “I haven’t talked to you in four years so this needs to be really funny” response. We ended up texting for another 30 minutes. It was just as if we were sitting on that old sectional in the same apartment we always hung out in half a decade ago.

It was easy.

It was entertaining.

It was fun.

As we were texting back and forth, I couldn’t help but think of all the memories we had together. The road trips. The pranks. The time I ripped my pants trying to get our chancellor’s ATV out of the mud.

I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, but I was also bummed we’d all lost touch. The fact I didn’t have 3-4 of the numbers saved in my phone showed me how far we’d all drifted.

If it weren’t for our friend Kenneth texting us every major holiday, we would likely never talk to each other as a group.

Kenneth knew what I needed to be reminded: relationships take effort.

As we grow up, and as our lives get more and more complicated, the friends from yesterday slip further and further away. Instead of going to class and then hanging out at night as a group, most of us are now married. Instead of randomly meeting up for dinner, we now live in seven different states. Instead of driving three hours for a basketball game on a Tuesday night, we now have actual jobs with real responsibilities.

The friendships were easier back then, but if they meant anything, they’re worth fighting for today.

What friendships do you need to fight for this week? What group of people do you need to text out of the blue? What memory is coming to mind from years ago that you’d like to relive with the people who made it?

Stop what you’re doing.

Pull out your phone.

Send the text.

Unless you have an iPhone and it’s dead. In that case, those people may text you by the time it charges.

Say your prayers and take your vitamins.

Have a nice day.

-Jonathan