Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, but not much has been going on. Medical update--the thingee in my left ear was in fact a basal carcinoma (lowest rung of the skin cancer ladder) and I am scheduled in September to go to get it re-looked at (read: cut on and burned some more), but it could be a lot worse. It doesn't appear to have spread and once they do the procedure, it's gone. Would that CLL was so easy. I'll continue my yearly pilgrimage to the dermatologist and recommend you do the same.
One of the reasons I haven't posted is that I've been kicking around a topic that, quite frankly, I don't like. For a couple of reasons. I don't like it, but I have to write it before I can move on to anything else. Now that I've started this post, I'll finish, but let me say up front this is not a cry in the darkness or an attempt to change any behavior on anyone's part. It's just a slightly melancholy recognition of a situation in which I find myself.
Way back when I was a teenager--just after the moon was invented--we used to float the Tangipahoa River on inner tubes, well before anyone made it a commercial activity. It wasn't known as 'tubing'. It was known as 'floating the river'. You'd always start with a core of people, but on nice days you'd often meet up with other groups. Many times they were great people and you would float for an hour or so in their company. Floating with a group is easy--it takes only minimal effort to stay close. You just have to reach out, grab an inner tube, and you're back in contact with their beer cooler. But say you get distracted and you float a little ways from the group. It can take some real effort to catch back up. Lots of flailing and splashing. Every now and then you'd find yourself so far from a group that you knew no amount of effort was going to bring you back to them. You didn't like those people any less--you just knew the river had taken you different ways and the distance between had grown too great to bridge.
So it is with social groups. It's dawned on me lately that while I still have wonderful friends, I no longer belong to any particular social group. The phone just doesn't ring anymore. No one appears to be saying, "Well, it ain't a party if Tim isn't here!" As an admittedly social creature, this is extremely disconcerting to me. The group with whom I used to hang has gone in a different direction. They zigged while I was zagging. We weren't wrenched apart; we lost contact in the fog of everyday life. Until recently I've allowed complacency, inattention, and (finally) trepidation to mask this disconnection. I've been in Southern Maryland for almost 14 years now and there are people here about whom I care very deeply. We just don't move in the same circles any more. The hardest part is knowing that I am to a large degree responsible. I am lousy at keeping up friendships (just ask my friends in Louisiana, or the Navy, or New Jersey). It's actually a pattern with me, though I usually wait until I move away from people before I lose touch. It's weird losing touch with people to whom I'm still geographically close.
I was hoping that through writing this I'd reach some epiphany, find some final satori to wrap this all neatly, but I got nothin'. When it comes to friends, I have been and am one of the luckiest guys on earth. I look through my ledger and read the names of some incredible people. To my comrades in good times and bad reading this, to those with whom I've sweated and bled and laughed and danced, to those on whose shoulders I've cried and whose tears have dampened my shoulder, I hope you know how special you are and how very much you mean to me. My hope is that some confluence of currents, eddies, and tides will bring us back together again (mainly because you ended up with the cooler).
OK, that's out of my system. On to better things.
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I hear ya, on all counts. I've found that the best of friends, the ones I care about are the ones that appear out of thin air, are always more than willing to lend a hand even if we haven't talked for years, or just go grab lunch.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think it's a math problem, there's only so much time, and it's hard to be close to 50+ people, let alone 100+.
From my perspective an interesting and relevant post. As someone who has never been comfortable with groups, but has still been lucky enough to have great friends, the lack of a group to hang with isn't much of an issue. I do recognize though that we aren't really part of the groups we used to hang with.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I see this as an opportunity. To make new friends/connections that are part of new interests. While I still love and cherish all my friends, it'd get really boring if all we did was hang out with the same people all the time, no matter how interesting they are. :-)
Liz
Read an interesting quote the other day: Twitter is full of strangers who should be your friends. Facebook is full of strangers who used to be your friends.
ReplyDeleteRemember the "merry-go-round" like thing on the playground? That spinning disk with metal bars to hold on to. The best feeling as a kid was to be on the merry-go-round with friends, flying fast, getting that funny feeling in your tummy, and smiling right to your inner core. A more difficult position was on the ground, watching all the spinning and revelry. Those who were brave could run alongside, grab a bar, and hop on. I was never that brave ... I would watch from the side. I might even make a feeble attempt at running alongside, but i was never brave enough to actually leap into the action. Last thing i wanted to do was leap and fail in front of everyone. As an adult, i find myself in the same situation. Remembering the revelry, no longer on the inside and not quite brave enough to make that leap. Life is good, and I'm not complaining either. Seems that sometimes life is more like a see-saw, and that’s fun, too :) We've got a beer fridge and a shelf full of rum. We should make a plan to float or spin with old friends soon. ~ Pit Girl
ReplyDeleteI've never been much of a group guy...I've always been better one-on-one, but groups, in general, are tough to sustain-- because circumstances are always changing for someone in the group, and it doesn't take that much to alter the group dynamic in a significant way. It's a widening gyre.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, it's much easier to do the group thing when you're young and single. Once families are in the picture, they're your primary group, and it's tough to drop everything for any other group. I know that I've had to cut back on the Aikido to coach baseball and football, which means saying goodbye to the dojo group and hello to a coaching group (which will also eventually fade away). But my time is limited to do these things with the boy, so it's a trade-off I've had to make.
Sometimes circumstances dictate your groups, and often those circumstances aren't entirely in your control.
That said, the can friendships remain, even if the groups come to a close. You'll find new groups, and you'll keep your old friends. It's like opening packs of trading cards-- you sift through the packs and hold on to your favorites which grow more valuable with time ;-).
That was from Greg, by the way.
ReplyDeleteI have found the best friendships are the ones you can let "ebb and flow." It doesn't mean you love the people less, it doesn't mean you don't think about them constantly either. Life circumstances dictate the need for that ebb and flow whether it be work, family/kids, home life, health. Then when one finds the time for the precious "flow" times, it makes the gathering that much better.
ReplyDeleteI still believe it isn't a party without Tim! And like Peg, the house is always stocked. With the 2 kids I know gathering for me is a huge effort. It's worth the effort though and I try to make it as much as possible! Kim B.
Myers Briggs says I'm an introvert. I hate groups of people. ANd who am I to argue with Myers and Briggs.
ReplyDeleteI always hated losing site of the cooler when we went tubing during my Hokie days.
While I live too far away to party with Tim (but when I did on TAD, it was a blast), take a look in the cooler that I'm sending back your way - I put an IOU in there for us to share a drink when I get up your way next time - or the next time.
- Meno
Since I have found that I am not good at facebook ,Iwill give you the wisdom I have learned over the years..........Thats right!
ReplyDeleteNothing!
What I thought was great about tubing on the Tangipahoa was that you had to be careful to stay in the middle. Too many water moccasins hanging from the trees on the edge. The other challenging thing was that the beer had its own tube and inevitably someone's tube would burst, requiring them to take the beer tube. This would inevitably lead to a very unstable beer cooler which needed constant attention. I suppose it's the little things. Little D
ReplyDelete