Touch

We all go through our lives collecting regrets. We note our mistakes, the bad choices we make, the people we hurt. We remember things we wish we hadn't done and the opportunities that passed us by. We can't help it. It's a curse of self-awareness that we tend to look back and analyze.

For me, regrets are most often the lost relationships, either absence of contact or distance from those who were once close and constant parts of my life. Rarely are these the sort of explosive, dramatic separations that drive the plots of movies and novels. They are a more muted loss, wherein you just wake one day to the realization that you've drifted from where you thought you were. The landscape has changed and things are merely not as they were. Maybe your busy lives have distracted you both and suddenly, you have completely lost each other in the crowd. It happens more often than you'd think. What lucky soul among us can say they still share the heartfelt camaraderie and confidence of their childhood best friend? If you've managed to stay in touch despite the turbulence of Fate, chances are the nature of your relationship has changed.

Logically, we can understand. Change is the nature of the universe, and changes are always happening to both parties in any relationship. For good or ill, every connection is a temporary one. Circumstances shift. Pieces drift apart, and sometimes when you try to fit them back together, you find the edges have eroded and no longer meet the way they used to. They may come together in a whole new way, but in any case, what was is past.

I accept this natural ebb and flow in my life and even welcome the new ways of being with old friends. There are a few, though, dear souls I let slip completely away, who count among my regrets. I think this is because there is a sense that, though relationships would have undoubtedly changed, we still could have been something precious had we not lost sight of each other. Of course, there are a hundred reasons why our lives went in opposite directions, but they don't seem to matter in hindsight. A loss has occurred. It is unfixable. There is nothing to do but move forward with a conviction to treasure the "now" relationships. Tomorrow, they too will change.

Even so, I often find myself reflecting on relationships that are gone, either through natural currents of change or those lost to neglect. While regret may accompany some of these reflections, I can not call them sorrows. I wouldn't miss these people, their incarnations that fit with mine at the time, if those moments together were not so golden. Each keenly felt loss is a person who was in my heart at one time, firmly and in that eternal way of all temporary moments. Their ghosts remain. Whether the people or those relationships continue to exist or not, they are with me.

The Conclusions:

Everything that floats through your life is temporary- things, people, relationships. Welcome them when they arrive, love them while they're here, bless them when they go, and remember them when they're gone.

A little melancholy never hurt anybody.

Use losses as lessons.

AND

Don't pass up an opportunity to keep in touch.

Comments

  1. In one of those interesting coincidences, a piece of my world seemed to be on the same wavelength with me as a beautiful book on the subject of friendship and loss crossed my desk this week. "City Dog, Country Frog" by Mo Willems is aimed at young children, but is simple, eloquent and touching, and worth reading at any age.

    Though the person who requested it did so without me in mind, I was able to share a wonderful book that might otherwise have escaped my notice- and it came my way at the perfect time.

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