Looming large

Relationships have loomed large in the last few months of my life. I returned to California and reestablished ties with old friends, joined a new church wherein I'm trying to build new ties, had an uncharacteristic short-lived romance, started emailing someone I met at the airport years ago, got reacquainted with an MIT friend over Christmas and now an old high school friend sends me a very welcome message out of the blue.

Wow, such a rush of memories come to mind and heart! If she's happened upon this blog--and she might have, I'm not sure--I won't be saying anything she doesn't already know when I admit I had quite the crush on her way back when. We were never anything but friends, though, and after high school I went to school out of state and she started a family. Naturally that was the end of any romantic notions I might have had--and I'm not so sure I had any notion of what romance was at that age anyway!

So why mention all this history? Most people can relate to this story or one very like it. It also sets the mood for my musings over how the passage of time affects our heart, feelings and memories. Time tends to smooth out the peaks and valleys sure enough, but I don't believe we really ever "get over" anything in our past. Those seismic events that loomed so large when they happened to us are like the proverbial ripples in a pond. Their repercussions continue indefinitely, though often attenuated. Mind you, I don't mean that we are doomed to forever be handicapped by the bad things that happen to us. We can and should mourn the crummy things that happen to us and but then we should use the experiences to form valuable life lessons. Maybe in that sense we do move on, but we don't "get over" anything and that is by no means necessarily a bad thing at all.

So what repercussions do my high school experiences with this friend have on my life today? Hmmm....that really wasn't the point of this post, you know!