i am not a mere event on your calendar
The second Friday of every month, a hour is blocked off on my calendar to remind me and a close friend from college to catch up. They created the series last year after I voiced my displeasure with how infrequently we were keeping in touch. It's a kind gesture, to be sure, and I suppose it beats doing nothing, but in practice it's changed very little.
More often than not, our call gets canceled or cut short because something unforeseen pops up. (They chose to schedule it during the Friday afternoon lull at work.) An hour a month is already not a lot of time—it's less time than I spend in front of a lawnmower—yet because of extenuating circumstances it usually ends up lasting half an hour or not happening at all. Sometimes when I get asked to reschedule yet again like today, I find myself bitterly wishing the calendar event didn't exist at all. At least before I could live in blissful ignorance about how unimportant I was, but now I can't even deny it.
I wish this didn't bother me as much as it does. I have plenty of other friends I see far less frequently, and for whatever reason I rarely mind. The only difference here is that I was much closer to this friend years ago. Am I wrong to expect more out of friends I was/am closer to? I don't know the answer to that question, but because I feel myself get upset about it, I at least know what my heart thinks, whether I agree with it or not.
It just makes me sad that this is what life has come to. Are we all really so busy that we have to create calendar events just to remind ourselves to think about our friends, yet somehow still manage to find ways to let these moments slip through the cracks? I don't have the answers to many of my questions, but I am certain that's not the sort of life I want to live.