Something got me thinking about my former travel partner. I'll admit that it was because of my stupidity that I lost her as a friend. Yet, I'm not really sure about the quality of the friendship we once shared. Thinking back on it, there may have been a codependency factor involved that made the dissolution of the friendship more painful for the two of us.
I'm very glad that FCP has had two happy events occur in her life in the past few months. And I'm sad that I couldn't be there to share them with her. Yet, she's not with me as I explore things with RQS, building up a shared set of happy experiences.. We both lost a lot when the friendship ended, but this is a part of life.
One of the things that FCP said to me in the process of cutting off communications was that I did not betray XGFJ, and that she is glad that I am communicating with her again. What she doesn't want to see is the fact that XGFJ betrayed me. Although I have forgiven XGFJ for her actions, I doubt that we'll be any closer than we are now - two people with a shared past that have less and less to talk about as time pulls us away from each other.
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But enough about FCP and XGFJ. There are other things that time has erased from my life. For example, the older I get, the harder it gets for me to remember many of the details of my late wife. She had a habit of saying "N double-A s t i" for "Nasty". There were many more quirks that she had, but most of them have moved into inaccessible areas of my memory. I miss those memories, yet it is a good thing that most of them are inaccessible. It would be a bad thing to bore RQS with things about my late wife's life, and for her to bore me with things about her late husband's life. We are only able to share the most important things about our late spouses' lives, and we understand the losses that the other has felt....
There's a part of me that mourns the loss of the career I enjoyed (for the most part) for the better part of 40 years. The opportunity to work as a programmer again is tantalizing, as it was the type of work I most enjoyed. Yet, I'm way past my prime, and I would not gain much from retooling for work best done by a younger person. Yet, I could sacrifice some of the time I have left to me to end my working career doing the type of work that gave me pleasure when I started in the workforce.
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One of the things I miss since I've been employed at my present job is reading for the enjoyment of it. By the time my day ends at the office, my mind is fried. I've made so many micro decisions that I have no energy left to make any of the big ones. This has resulted in an inability to clean up my apartment, and an inability to do much of the reading I enjoy so much. Hopefully, by the time I get to take my next long vacation, I will have recharged my energy enough so that both my apartment has finally gotten cleaned up and that I've regained my ability to enjoy a long book. I'd hate for these things to have gotten lost with time.
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All of us have friends and family we have lost over the years. Many of us have had to reinvent ourselves to live with a purpose in life. As for me, I live to learn - about myself, about others, and about the world in which we live. From each loss comes an opportunity to grow. And I intend to use those opportunities to grow instead of being burdened by them....
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