It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Old friendship earns you the right to be unimpressive. With someone new, you are still being assessed, so you edit: the half-formed idea, the dull mood, the joke that lands badly. With a friend of many years, none of that has to be managed, because the account is long enough to absorb a bad day. That ease is not a small comfort; it is most of what the years were for.

Call the friend you have been meaning to call, and do not save up anything interesting first. Let the conversation be ordinary.