Tonight I called a friend I haven't called in months. I called her once after she moved away in June, then tried to call her a few weeks after that but she never called me back. I also wrote her a letter (responding to one she sent me) but didn't hear back. So I stopped trying these past few months.

But I felt bad about the whole thing, wondered if we were ever going to talk again, if we were still friends even, so I finally tried again. She picked up the phone and we talked and it was like nothing ever happened. Things like that happen all the time with me. I take things hard, I take them as signs of rejection, I wonder if I'm turning myself into a pest and figure I should just quit being so abnormally needy. Maybe I'm too sensitive. Actually, I think it's called "being shy."

One of my best memories with this particular friend involves a moonlit walk one night around this time of year with her, her husband and my sister. She let me borrow her jacket, which was way too big for me. We walked on the dark roads among the trees and falling leaves, talking and laughing. I remember we cut across a field at one point, and I had no idea where we were. I'm usually afraid to walk around outside at night, and I hate the cold, but there was no sense of fear this time, and I didn't mind the cool weather. A good memory. Memories like those make being so far away that much harder. Hearing her voice on the phone was nice, but it's not seeing her face or borrowing her coat or talking under a moonlit night sky.

Why can't people stay put?