When Inattention Hurts

I have caused another person pain.

Photo by Trung Thanh on Unsplash

I am disappointed with myself. This month, I intend to bring balance back into my life. As part of that, I was going to reconnect with people. To do that, I had a list of people I wanted to contact and reconnect with. But, of course, there’s been a delay between intention and action.

I got home tonight from a lovely evening and saw a voice message from a friend I’d meant to reach out to. She was checking in as she hadn’t seen me in some time and what killed me was she asked if she’d done something to cause a rift between us.

I immediately replied to her, confessing that I’d been lost in my head and that she wasn’t to blame for this happening. I hope she’ll answer in the morning, and we’ll get a coffee date on the calendar.

This reminded me of the part in Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman where he talks about deciding who you want to be and acting on that immediately. The delay stops us from being who we want to be, even as delay is human.

I have thought several times over the last few weeks that I should contact this friend. But I didn’t. This gap between thought and action leads to inaction.

This is something I’m aware of and something I am so very guilty of doing. I tell people if they send me a message and I…