As a very organized person, I get a churning, burning feeling in my gut when things do not go as planned. You would think I would know by now that things never go as planned, but the optimist in me is forever sunny and self-assured.

While I have been known to blow off my own deadlines using the ever-handy rationalization that I can ignore myself if I want too, seldom am I starting to write my fearless copy after 4 o’clock in the afternoon three days before publishing. Today I am.

I can point my finger to a couple of unexpected occurrences which caused much of the delay, but mostly I spent a big chunk today giving email assurance to a very good friend that she was a very good person and not a lousy judge of character, a bad friend, and a coward—all of these assaults having been hurled at her by another person to whom she has been very close.

The very immediacy of email comes in handy when phone calls are out of the question. For writers such as my friend and myself, seeing your emotions coming out one letter at a time helps to coalesce and transmit your very deepest thoughts and feelings. The email says here is where I was at 8 a.m. and here is where I am now after this, that, and the other thing happened. Am I losing my mind? Should I give in to my emotions, pretend to be sick and go home? Is any of this true about me?

Seven or eight emails later, my friend had settled down, decided to remain at work and already reached the anger stage of this particular crisis. Did I help? I think so. Mostly I helped by simply being on the other end of the electronic cry for reassurance and it was easy as she is none of the things of which she had been accused.

It is always nice to be able to help a friend. Sometimes the favors are small, like giving them a ride and sometimes the favors are big and financial. Whatever the circumstances, there is truth to the old clichÈ that you can’t make a friend without being a friend. Over the years I’ve been blessed with good people coming in to my life and being willing to stay. Friends are more precious than money or any material thing that comes to mind.

As we age, the process of friend making seems to be harder. Those of us that have moved around a good bit have people we consider close friends scattered everywhere. You cannot possibly be as close to those people as you were when they lived around the corner or across town. Some of the immediate intimacy suffers from distance, but it doesn’t mean the petals of friendship need to wither and die.

Hand written mail has taken a huge hit since the age of computer mail has come into vogue. I fondly remember how cool it was to find a letter from a friend in the mailbox and settle down to read it. Didn’t matter if it was long or short, it was clear this person thought about me enough to set aside some time to drop me a line, find a stamp and a mailbox, and share some part of a life being lived elsewhere.

Those same warm fuzzies can be found in the email inbox these days and more often than ever before. It really doesn’t matter if someone sits down to write a letter, finds a stamp and then a mailbox, or simply puts your name on the TO line in their email program. Someone has thought about you, wanted to share something and did it at speeds almost as immediate as talking.

Though the advances of ever changing technology, I was at the right place at the right time for someone today in a way I could not possibly have been 10 years ago. Damn, what a ride in this no two days the same world I find myself in. While our electronic hashing out of the problem was mutually satisfying, we plan on talking by phone this evening, drinking adult beverages straight from the bottle and getting to the bottom of this once and for all. Sometimes, you just need to hear it.

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