Oct 8, 2025
You know that friend? The one who knew you when your biggest worry was what to make for dinner and your fashion sense was questionable at best? The one you swore you’d never lose touch with, and then… life happened.
If this feels familiar, you’ve already lived the premise of my article, “The Friendship Paradox: Why Adult Friendships Are Harder (But Not Impossible).” We all hit that post-college wall where the three pillars of friendship—proximity, shared life stages, and available energy—crumble. Making new friends feels like an uphill battle, but as I explored, it’s a challenge we can overcome with intention.
But what about the old friends? The ones who are already woven into the fabric of our history? This is the question I tackled in my follow-up piece, “Finding Your People Again: Rekindling Old Friendships.” And recently, I got to live out my own advice in the most delightful way.
I reconnected with an old friend from my Chicago days—a witness to my 20s and a guest at my wedding three decades ago. We’ve had fits and starts of connection, but, as life does, it pulled us into different lanes. We experienced the very phenomenon I recently discussed in a Success Magazine feature I contributed to: “emotional drift,” which writer Zoe Asher describes as that “slow, subtle sense of disconnect, even among longtime friends.”
When my friend invited us to a birthday dinner back in Chicago, we couldn’t make it. But instead of letting that be another fading ember, we did the very adult, very intentional thing: we scheduled a phone date.
And when that date arrived, I almost cancelled. I was buried under a mountain of work. I felt that familiar tug of overwhelm. It was a classic case of what I explained to Success: “Our brains prioritize efficiency... We subconsciously deprioritize friendships because our cognitive load increases.” My own brain was working against me, telling me a phone call was a luxury I couldn't afford. Thankfully, my husband gave me a gentle push to keep the date.
I’m so glad I did. We talked for 57 minutes, and it was utterly effortless. We slid right back into the easy rhythm of old friends. But the real magic happened after we hung up. We texted each other the next day, both overflowing with the same warm feeling. We expressed how much we loved the conversation, how amazing it was to pick up right where we left off decades ago. And then, we did the most important thing: we pulled out our calendars and scheduled the next call right then and there.
That mutual enthusiasm and immediate action is the entire heart of rekindling old friendships. It’s the proof that the bond is still there, just waiting for a little oxygen.
She has since moved to another city, making future proximity even less likely. But that’s okay. Our next call is already on the calendar. We’re building a new rhythm, which is exactly what I advocate for in “Finding Your People Again.”
As I’ve learned and written about, these longtime friends become like family. They are the keepers of your history. That is a bond worth a little inefficiency, worth a little scheduled energy, worth pushing through the drift.
So, if you have someone like that on your mind, don’t overthink it. Send that low-pressure message. Make the call. I promise you, the 57 minutes you spend on it will be the most efficient and heartwarming investment you make all week. You might just give one of your most special friendships a beautiful second wind.