Sunday 3 November 2013

My friend got lost about a year ago

In all the flurry of getting engaged to Future Husband, sharing a really bad cold, and trying to keep up with all my daily demands- cooking, working, cleaning my clothes so that I have something to wear to work- I forgot to email a good friend of his whom I'm connected to on Face Book to warn her that I was going to drop the "FH and I are engaged!" bomb.

She didn't actually mind. She sent FH a pretty amusing text about it, actually. It started out with, "What the hell?" and ended with "Congratulations!"

I emailed her and apologized. She was cool about it, and didn't say much more about it, but she did ask me, "Have you heard from A?"

A is our friend from high school. I knew A in college and loved her. She was a bit like the cartoon Daria, full of acerbic wit and hilarious stories too. We hung out a few times in college but not much.

A moved up to the Northeast years ago. She's an extremely talented writer with, I think, a masters degree in something along that vein.

This recession has dragged on for years and affected her livelihood at least once (probably more than once). I know she had 90-day notice for losing her job last year, and that's when her blog posts ended. That's when she stopped logging in to Face Book, too. Her 40th birthday came and went without a comment from her, although many of her friends wished her well.

She is missing. In this age where everyone is online, I can understand the lure of avoiding it, but with her admitted problems with depression, it is worrisome.  Our friend has noticed, and asked me if I've heard from her, but I haven't. I did exchange emails with her for a while, and send her job search websites that I'd discovered in my recessionary journey that pertain to Florida only, where I've lived. I told her she could use my house and drive to wherever she needed to go to interview, back when I had a house.  She never took me up on my offer, which was fine because jobs were hard to come by in Florida and I wouldn't blame her for wanting to live somewhere with seasons and without oppressive heat.

Still, we worry.  And we hope that she is fine, wherever she is.  If we hear from her, I will let you know.

Love,
Jane



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