Broader perspectives
October 27, 2008
I had a rare chance to pull back and see the 50,000 foot view of my life.
Broader perspectives
My old friend Chuck was just here, visiting. He visited for about 24 hours, and it was really great to see him. I’ve known him since 1982: 26 years. It seems like it must be impossible that I could know someone who’s not a family member for that long. But simultaneously it really doesn’t seem like it has been that long at all. When we get together, it seems like almost no time has passed, and our friendship is still what it ever was. That even though so much has happened in both our lives since last I talked to him, and that we live our lives almost completely separately.
He met my daughter for the first time, and after she got over her initial uncertainty about this strange guy in her house, she warmed right up to him and they got along famously. He’s getting married next year, and we talked about him having kids. We talked about our houses, and the work they need done on them. About mortgages, investmints and gardening. It all felt as natural as can be that that’s what we should be talking about and doing. And that, again is strange and not at all strange.
Compared to our long relationship, the things that our happening in my life now that are not related to family seem suddenly more ephemeral, less in my face. It’s as if for a few hours I got to pull back from the timeline that is my life and see just the big picture, the enduring things, and a lot of the finer detail — my project for CSLT 355, my upcoming screening exam, projects at work, my job, the current financial crisis — merged into a staticky background, while those enduring features remained strong and obvious.
I needed that.
