There are fourteen group chats on my phone. I scroll through them now and then and wonder where everybody went. Half are silent, frozen in time, a birthday planning chat with its last spark from March last year, a book club where someone said, “We should meet soon,” and nobody ever answered. "Movie time" with friends, I've barely seen since early in the pandemic. Each thread started with hope, you know? The promise that we could hold onto something, that the people who matter wouldn’t just slip through our fingers this time.

Those first few days feel golden: jokes flying, memes dropping, everyone checks in with real warmth. For a brief moment, you believe you’ve beaten distance, that this is the secret to keeping the band together. But the magic always fades. Work picks up, someone’s world shrinks to diapers and nap times, somebody gets quiet, and you tell yourself you’ll reach out tomorrow. Response times stretch, questions hang, and a photo or link goes unanswered. Sometimes I open an old chat and feel the echo; they don’t end with a fight but with everyone quietly letting go.

It’s never about just one person. One stops replying, then another, and soon nobody wants to be the awkward replier. What if your message dies on the vine? So nothing happens at all. I want to say I’m better at breaking the ice, but honestly, I get tangled up in doubts just like anyone else. Maybe more than I used to.

Every little tombstone on my phone reminds me of what it takes to keep a connection alive. It’s work, and lately, I haven’t been as willing or as present as I wish I were. Tech is easy to blame, but it only makes staying in touch an option, never a habit. You have to call, text, show up; things that require... well, more of you than just a quick emoji. It’s a truth I didn’t want to admit: sometimes it’s not the world that’s changed, but me. Maybe I’m tired, or maybe I just thought it would get easier.

Where once I saw an archive of failures, now I see something softer, a record of all the stretching we do, trying to be close. We’re all carrying more connections than we can handle. Maybe it isn’t possible to give everyone of them the attention they deserve. Maybe group chats are just proof that we still want to try, even if we fall short.

So I don’t beat myself up for the ghosts anymore. I just try to hold onto the few I can. Maybe that’s all any of us can do: send a message, pick up when it matters, and hope somebody else is dreaming too.

I’m not as good at it as I used to be. But a man can dream and try, can’t he?

Links referenced in this episode:

• jamesabrown.net