Sunday Hello’s

One of the biggest sources of happiness over the past 2 years has been an email I call the ‘Sunday Hello.’ This is an email I write out every Sunday (Yes, Duh..) to a bunch of close friends and family detailing the happenings of the week. On some weeks, it’s purely about the significant events that took place and on others, it’s about things I learnt. Either way, I attempt to give them a flavour of things on my side.

I have different frequencies for different sets of friends, of course. Mom, for example, is written to 3 times a week. And some friends and groups of friends are written to once a month.

I’m notoriously bad at staying in touch via chat. I rarely do ‘stay-in-touch’ Skype calls. These are not my strengths. The best ways I stay in touch with friends is when I work with them on some initiative or another. That provides the necessary excuse and I do do this from time to time. But, there’s only so much of this I can do.

I do email pretty okay though. So, this one is right down my street. I can barely express the amount of joy I get when I see a nice long detailed email from friends in reply. The joy is really in knowing the details, understanding the highs and lows and being there, or at least feeling like I am there and being able to offer support.

We often hear of relationships where we pick up right from where we left off. Funnily enough, I find that to be an excuse for not staying in touch. I used to say that a lot about many relationships and say that much less now. I am in touch with friends and family members and that makes all the difference in the world.

At the end of the day, it’s my belief that we all crave connection and that we all like to be loved and cared for. A big part of our self esteem comes from this as well. To be loved and cared for, we have to love and care as well. And these are verbs for for a reason. One way of demonstrating that is by committing to stay in touch.

‘Good relationships are like the hands of a clock. They meet for a short time, but they always stay connected.’

So, let’s stay connected.

I’m glad I made that commitment to myself. I hope you do too.