northsider

You lose some along the way

That's a phrase that I've used to comfort myself for quite sometime now: it goes a long way to explaining the loss of connection I've suffered with people who were either held dearly or or who were relatively unimportant but have since become someone wholly different in the intervening passage of time. Those relationships were just not meant to withstand the test of time and the best explanation I've been able to come up with is: "You lose some along the way"

But that's just a rationale, not a genuine comfort to me. You see, I've always been a deeply sentimental person, almost to point of a obsessive-compulsive disprder: I don't deal well with change in my life. And for reasons that I won't go into for the time being, I've found that interpersonal relationships are the key to it all. People are like a touchstone to me, to times and circumstances that aren't there anymore. That's the thing about getting a little older, the pace of change is insidiously gradual. All of a sudden you turn around and what you thought was at arm's length has moved far, far away, and trying to reach back is the dumbest idea of all.

And lord does it hurt. One thing I really hate is going to a neighborhood or town where I was very familiar of the surroundings only to notice that some buildings have been torn down and others put up in their place. That happens to me from time to time where ever I go, but it really hit me when I went back to my college campus in 2001. I knew all the buildings for a wide distance because I walked everywhere and paid attention to the surroundings. When I went back, saw changes, and couldn't remember what had been there before, it was devastating to me. My history, part of my life was gone and I had lost it as surely as if I had descended into senility.

And now for reasons I won't bore anyone with, that's going on to greater effect to me right now. Earlier tonight, I heard or thought of something that reminded me of a party I went to 9 years ago, and how everything; the people the places, and the context, had gone away without even a token effort on my part to retain connections to whatever I could as a shallow reassurance that constancy exists in my life.

But it's late now, and while I might come back to this piece of writing to make things slightly more cogent or lucid, I had to get this much down because the troubling, defeatist thoughts really only come bubbling up during the small hours. And now that it is done, I will try to find another Late, Late Show movie on TV as a comfort and try to get some sleep.