<p>Great suggestions guys. Thus far I have called once and chatted for a bit and she got into a fair amount of detail that she didn’t have to share; I just listened and did not try to make suggestions or anything – I kept it more along the lines of “how are you handling it.” About 5 days later, I sent a one liner email, and I’d like to try to call again within a week. I don’t want to be “in her face” more than once a week, but I’d like to catch her before people start disappearing for the holidays at the end of this week.</p>
<p>Weird thing is, this isn’t a bff and I know she has friends/family to rely on. But she’s someone who has been good to me in the last 5 yrs. I think it would be “easy” for a casual friend to just disappear for a while (esp since we’re in different cities) and “re-surface” when things are better down the road. But I keep thinking about how people always say – that supposed “friends” only checked in for the first 5 minutes when the news was “new” and then moved on and assumed everything was better, while the person who was dealing with the issue had to deal for months. As awkward as I feel over-stepping, I also don’t want to be that kind of person.</p>
<p>I miss chatting with her in “routine ways” – for example, a trip brought me to her old college campus recently and when things were well, I would totally have taken a pic on campus and sent a “guess where I am email.” And an email chain would have ensued for a few minutes. You just feel so uncomfortable doing that when you know someone is going through a lot and probably doesn’t want to deal with your commentary.</p>