Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

Friendship reads as an ornament until something gives way, and then it turns out to have been load-bearing. Several people who know your situation and would notice your absence do more for a hard year than almost anything you can arrange alone. Being loved is half of it; the other half, being someone who loves, is the part that is actually within reach when you feel short of both.

If your circle has thinned, it usually thinned by attrition rather than decision, and it rebuilds the same slow way. One message to one person this week, with no occasion attached. Repetition is what turns acquaintance into the kind that holds.