Hey friend,
I'm going to be traveling my way through, effectively, a lifetime of my personal greatest hits in the next week.
Line up?
Leeds this weekend: to sing a tune or two at my old bass player Tom's wedding. I think he was 19 when we met. Time is passing.
Berlin for next week: to create music videos for a Brazilian-Berlin music exchange I got invited to be a part of. Filming music videos -- especially in this city, with this particular film crew -- is arguably one of the greatest, most soul-fulfilling pleasures of my life.
Boston next weekend: to watch another college roommate (AKA a sister) get married, which is completely worth the effort of traveling to another continent for 48 hours.
I give you a lot of career advice, . And I do it all in hopes that you -- and me, for that matter -- will look back 60 years from now and realize we didn't screw it all up, after all.
But you know what else is a big part of not screwing it up? Not screwing up your relationships. So I'm going to take off my career hat today, and give you some life advice I so desperately wish we'd all take to heart.
Put in the effort for your friends.
I beg of you. It can be hard to manage, and it's so easy to blame life for just happening to us. But please, please believe me: your soulmates can and will disappear on you if you let the time pass. It will happen a little bit at a time, and then all at once.
So send one text today. One single text.
I swear to you, it doesn't have to be anything fancy.
"Heard this song, thought of that time you got drunk and did something dumb. I love you."
This is all it takes to keep a friendship alive. If you wait to 'catch up for real', you will wait forever. It is the ache of the modern day friendship, my love. You will never catch all the way up, not ever again. The goal is to not lose your grasp entirely.
So that, one day, when you find yourself in a place where you cannot decipher up from down, and your whole world is crashing in on itself, you will still have a friend. You'll have a friend when you really, really need one.
I am one of the best friends I know, and some days that can feel like a terrible and lonely burden. But mostly? It feels like a magic talent I never knew I had until adulthood.
So send the one text. Send it to someone you'd rather not lose.
Because you will not stay connected by accident. You will stay connected one dumb joke at a time.
xxA