Just pick up the phone and call a loved one.

Just call, don’t bandy messages back and forth about when a good time is. Pick up your phone, hit the little phone icon, and say "hello, I was thinking about you and wanted to say hello, is now a good time to chat?"

If the person picks up and says, "sorry, now’s not a good time", that’s fine. You called. Maybe they’ll say I’ll call you back. In the end, you heard their voice and they heard yours.

If the person doesn’t pick up, you can leave a voicemail. Maybe they don’t check their voicemail. Maybe they don’t know how. But you can still do it.

When you call unannounced and your call is missed, that recipient might think it’s an emergency. Who would call unless it was an emergency? They might think. They might text you back and say, "is everything alright? I saw you called." As I continue the practice of "just call" I know to follow up a missed call with a message that says: "hey, I was just thinking of you and wanted to catch up and hear your voice! No need to call back, I’ll try again another time."

A few years ago, I started my year with a resolution that if I thought of someone, I would send them a message. I did that. It yielded more connection in my life. But a text message was easy, though, and I think it is a poor stand-in for hearing a loved one’s voice. The point of all this, though, was to reach out when the feeling of being able to reach out was present in me.

Then, I changed messages to phone calls for the closest people in my life. But it’s not easy. There are many things that stand in the way of calling. It feels more vulnerable and intimate and when it doesn’t go the way we want, it’s uncomfortable. So we might tell ourselves that people’s lives are so busy. We don’t want to interrupt. It might hurt, even just a little, to reach out and hear that a person can’t talk right now, or when they don’t pick up. I’m still learning to practice empathy and understanding when someone isn’t available, and you are; when you want human connection, but the other side can’t meet that need in the moment. If that moment hurts, acknowledge and feel that hurt, and then move on with the day.

It can be difficult to feel feelings, of course, so we can also reassure ourselves rationally (if we must). By calling and experiencing a missed connection, you can know that you’ve shown up for the people you love, by trying to reach out. And, yes, the true reality is that people are indeed often busy—you weren’t when you called, but that was you, and this is them.

Sometimes, you might try and try and try again, only for the pile of missed connections to grow, like loose threads coming off an old sweater. Sometimes the person won’t hit the ball back. Maybe you’ll need to try scheduling your calls. Maybe even that doesn’t work out so great. This is something we fear to experience — a connection we value growing weaker, or the other party simply is not able or willing to meet you where you are at. Sometimes that’s just life. Sometimes we grow apart. Sometimes we grow back again.

But wouldn’t you be grateful to say you tried when you were able?

Not many people call these days.

Just call.