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I have a friend that I have been friends with for a very long time. I've lost count. Maybe 18 years? Or is it over 20? Gosh, I really don't know. But after she got married, she moved away. But she came home quite often and we would always touch base.

Even if a visit wasn't possible, then phone calls were the way to go. But in the last year, I really felt distant from her and one of the main reasons was the actual distance. She's a 3 hour time zone difference and she starts work at 3:30am. Makes for conversations difficult. And when I e-mailed her, I never heard back.

We did end up connecting here and there, but I always felt that it was a "cold" conversation and nothing like what we had before.

So I e-mailed her and asked her what the heck was going on. Before I get crap about not calling her, remember her schedule. She is probably up at 2:30am EST to get to work for 3:30 but sleeps at a very early time. Time zones make it difficult.

In the e-mail, I told her how awesome I think she is, how I valued our friendship, but how I was concerned about our friendship, and my feelings, etc. I also gave her the option to get out of the relationship if she opted to. People change and sometimes people don't stay friends forever...and that's ok. People shouldn't stay friends forever because they've been friends for a certain period of time.

I really put a lot of thought into this e-mail as I didn't want it to be accusatory. I didn't want to throw away the relationship. But I wanted to let her know that I was upset, felt that we were growing apart, etc. I wanted to stay friends. I really felt that the relationship was built on enough trust and honesty that I could go to her with this and she would be honest with her feelings.

And I was right. She felt that everything was going just fine and didn't realize how I felt. But when she understood where I was coming from, she was apologetic and explained to me what was going on with her that may have made me think that things were going bad. We both came to a conclusion of how we could make our communication better between the two of us so that we weren't in this position again.

It was just such a good affirmation that we were good, if not great friends. It was a moment for us to both realize that friendships can not be taken for granted. Even the closest of friends have their problems and issues. But the great part about these friends is that if both parties put their mind to it, the friendship prevails and whatever issue is in the way can be dealt with.