Somewhere around the second year of our marriage, Karen and I decided that we should have a family computer. We had both been Mac users for a long time, and we each brought our grad school laptops to the marriage, which were beginning to become dated and underperform basic tasks. So, we purchased a desktop Mac into which we consolidated both of our old laptops. All of the things from grad school and earlier transferred into users on the new machine, and life moved forward.
That computer lasted us until only months ago, at which point we upgraded. The users on our old computer? Transferred right over, meaning that everything from grad school and earlier is still there. The end result of this is that my email application has a habit of storing “archive” messages from forever ago. When it does so, it stores everything in the email conversation…the original email, the replies, every part of the thread. Entire conversations that I had long forgotten about there at your fingertips when you find yourself wasting time (as I was a few weeks ago), and wanting to browse through the past.
Karen and I were part of the same theatre group for some time, and there are a lot of conversations with other members preserved in these records. Conversations with members of our old faith community about the things that were going on in our lives. I miss those friends, with all too many of whom I’ve fallen out of touch.
I love the opportunity to live in different places. You never know when you move to a new place if you’re going to like it or not…sometimes it’s a wonderful experience, sometimes a terrible one, but always an experience from which one grows. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that I’ve only one or two big moves left in me. Partly this is because I’m starting to feel old, but I think that this falling out of touch is a large part of the problem. After moving back to the South recently, we’ve had the chance to re-connect with many old friends that now live only a few minutes or hours away instead of all the way down the East coast. I’ve cherished those opportunities, but I’ve discovered, as well, just how dynamic all of our lives are.
I mean, that works out well in theory…we know we’re not static, that our experiences and relationships are always altering the way we navigate through this journey called life…but it’s much more striking in practice. As we’ve re-connected with old friends, I’ve noticed profound differences at times, even to the point that I’m not certain friendships would have formed between some of us had we met now. I’ve also heard the stories of what has transpired in their lives since last we were in regular contact, and I understand, at some basic level, why these changes have happened. I’m only left wondering how it is that I’ve changed, how different I must seem to these old friends.
Advent is winding down, and Christmas in mere days away. I’ve lived long enough, and traveled around enough, to have friends in many places. Most of them I won’t speak to before Christmas aside from cursory greetings on cards, but there are days when I carry them all with me heavily through the day.
It’s frighteningly difficult to remember at times how interconnected our lives are. Today, we are interconnected despite geographical distances. I hope we can all slow down this week and remember each other, because that’s a part of what the Holiday Season is about.