One
of the very interesting things about this year has been reconnecting with a few
people from my past. Regardless of whether it was five or twenty-five years that
had passed, I found myself thinking about how much had happened since our last
meeting, and, inevitably, how much we’d changed, as a result of our life
experiences, as well as the ageing process.
When
these encounters happen, sometimes there’s a relaunching of the friendship. In the
initial stages, there tends to be a lot of nostalgia, as each party tries to
remind the other about things that happened all those years ago. What I find
myself dealing with is the awkwardness of having forgotten something the
other person has remembered; I feel like I’ve let the person down, somehow, by
not having retained the memory. Fortunately, it also happens the other way around.
What
I like is when the rekindled friendship feels like a comfortable fit, where,
despite the relationship having discontinued many years ago, there’s an ease of
communication, ready laughter, and a natural flow of who and where we are at this
stage of our lives. It’s a really good feeling, and something that I find
wonderfully affirming. I love it when the energy of a good connection,
made at one stage of life, resurfaces many years later. It confirms my belief
that certain bonds are permanent, even magical, defying geography or the
passage of time.
But
what is decidedly in a category of its
own is a friendship revisited after forty-plus years, when your last connection
was in your childhood, and you meet up again as middle-aged people. Very strange.
In so many ways, I feel like a different person to whom I was when I was 11, yet
when I hear the other person’s views of me, it seems one’s essence remains
unchanged. Having said as much, what unnerves me - ever so slightly - is
someone expecting me to hold the same views I held decades ago, when surely the
whole point of life and growth is shedding what no longer serves us, and taking
on what does. I rather like the process of redefinition, both conscious and
unconscious.
As
I approach the end of yet another year, I can’t help but smile as I contemplate the regaining of lost
connections. Some destined to play a bigger role in our lives than others, they
definitely give us a fresh perspective on who we are, and of how big a ripple
we’ve caused in the pond of life.
L-R: Aunty Helena, Mom, Wendy, me & Dad, +- 1970, when I was 9 or 10 yrs old.
