Should we recycle friends?

As I sit towards the end of every year I start to get more and more introspective in the way I look at my life over the past year, and I persist on making the next year better than the last, I begin to thumb through my cell phone book and I think. Which people did I try to connect with over the last year, and either did not connect with, or this person is currently not trying to grow personally, and should I try and take this person through the next year of my life with me. I wonder am I the only person that does that? I realize that friendship is essential to the soul, but I also realize the age old mantra, "I could do bad by myself!"

I had one friend in particular, at least someone who I thought was a very good friend, is someone that to say the least has had a pretty bad year. I have tried to be there for this person,. be a shoulder for them, be a sounding board, but I began to think that I was enabling this person more than I was helping them. Now granted, this person was an excelent person for me to be around with and was a good friend for a season, but like that old pair of jeans, that just doesn't fit anymore, I think that persons time and resources as a friend would be better suited for someone else at this time. And, like that old pair of jeans, maybe in a couple of years, they can be repurposed. Is it bad to think like that?

I periodically try ( at least I think I do) to touch bases with everyone in my rolodex at least 12 times a year, and as we get closer to the end of the year, I find myself leaving the message, " Hey so and so, this is my last attempt to reach out to you, I would love to hear from you, but if I don't, hey it's been nice knowing you." I see that as a way of decluttering my life and letting them go. I do not know if that is some passive agressive b.s. that I picked up from my mother, (lord knows we all have something that we have, but that is another story...) but it seems to work for me. As I begin to do that, I wonder, am I the only one that does something like that, or is that something that is picking up,like paying backwards. And if it has not picked up, would I be a new trendsetter for something new. Well that is all I have for now, let me get back to recycleing. Peace.

Darrin