checking in

I've had this conversation a few times recently, but it keeps coming back to haunt me, especially when it's me that's giving the advice.  For me and a few other people that I love, we don't live on the same side of the country as our family and a majority of the friends that have been important in the recent past, and this is hard to deal with.  Even though we all realize that we are leading different lives than the people we love and miss from "home", wherever that may be, it's still hard.  And usually, I end up telling or discussing the following in some version:

There are many types of friends, and once a person moves, you realize what kind of friend you have.  There are three kinds:
1) The kind of friend you always keep up with, can check in with, no matter the circumstances.  You talk on a regular basis, keeping up with each others lives by more than facebook.  The person that is always excited to talk to you and you are always excited to talk to.  Both people work for the friendship- and both definitely have to work and both realize this part of the friendship.
2) The kind of friend that you don't have to talk to regularly or check in with, or even at all, and you're still friends.  You and the friend are able to pick up right where you left off the last time, as if no time has gone by and nothing has changed.  You catch up, and things are as they have always been.
3) And then there's the third type- the kind of friend that kind of moves out of your life because neither in the relationship are willing to work hard enough to keep it going.  Sometimes it's gradual and you become more like acquaintances than friends, or it could be that it just stops.  Whatever, but both are OK with this.

I feel like all my relationships fall into one of these three categories (and thankfully anyone that reads this, all three of them, fall into one of the first two), but sometimes, there is the friend that on my end is a Type 1, but for them is clearly a Type 3, and this is the hardest thing for me to handle- when someone I care about doesn't care about me as much or at all.  I've already had one good friend do this to me and we were currently living in the same city!  To have this happen again isn't nearly as devastating because I'm so far away, but it isn't easy.  It makes me want to move back to Atlanta after grad school, but I really feel like that would be a step back for me, and I just don't know how to deal with the conflicting emotions of wanting to be around people that know me, and needing to stay away for the same reasons.  ugh.... being far away is hard.