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Were friendships always so fragile? I suspect not. But we now live in an era of radical individual freedoms. All of us may begin at the same starting line as young adults, but as soon as the gun goes off, we're all running in different directions; there's little synchrony to our lives. We have kids at different rates (or not at all); we pair off at different rates (or not at all); we move for love, for work, for opportunity and adventure and more affordable real estate and healthier lifestyles and better weather.

Yet it's precisely because of the atomized, customized nature of our lives that we rely on our friends so very much. We are recruiting them into the roles of people who once simply coexisted with us -- parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, fellow parishioners, fellow union members, fellow Rotarians.

Thinking about adult friendship, and now trying to cultivate/revive some ones I've been missing. (You know, one critical step to revival is self-forgiveness, put away the self-recrimination for letting it go so long...)

Also thinking about how bands fill that social role for me. Like in context of Robert D. Putnam's "Bowling Alone" thesis, in terms of how much less community-group oriented like in the USA is now... I mean the parallels between a good HONK band and a good church community, say, are pretty blatant!