On Old Friends

 I have been around long enough now to have created a history of my own. I have lived through many events, long enough to have gained a thing called perspective, something that most young people don’t yet know about. The teenager whose girl friend leaves him thinks he will never get over it and never love again. I know different. I know that it won’t be too long before another flashing smile will catch his eye. He just does not yet know that pain does heal and memories dim.

 Time, people and circumstances come and go...

Time, people and circumstances come and go, but not in a meaningless stream. There are those times, those people and those circumstances that make an impact on the heart and memory that can never be replaced. Old friends are like that. I always look forward to what new introductions can bring…such as a new baby or a new job…but when I am looking for assurances and a place to lay back, I go to old friends.

A good, reliable friend...

Some of the wonderful oldies are no longer with me in the flesh, but our times and exploits together are a part of the growing up that has made me who I am. I think of a good, reliable friend (still with me, blessedly) who has walked with me through many of the highs and lows of my life…deaths, losses, divorce…always bringing her gift of non-judgmentalness. At one time when I was very unsure of myself and my choices, I turned to her tentatively, probably looking for approval, and her steady tone told me, “I love you, and whatever you do is ok with me.” Nothing replaces good underpinnings like that.

Mental underpinnings....

The mind holds old friends for us as well, if we will think back a bit. No doubt there are ways of thinking and behaving that may no longer serve us; hopefully these we will have jettisoned, but values we have learned and practiced remain as mental underpinnings. When did we discover that others are as deserving of the good things of life as we are? What wise person showed us that an adversarial stance accomplishes only disagreement and inevitable push-back?

Old friends of the mind.....

 Of course there are always newer and faster ways to accomplish our desires, but do they sometimes leave out the humility and humanity that are vital and precious to us? It is very easy in the world of new means to overlay the old importances as no longer meaningful. If we fall heir to this we have ceased to be as picky as we should be about the care of old friends of the mind. We live in the midst of thunder every day, loud and noisy ideas that vie for our attention and would make irrelevant that which went before, but maybe not always worthy of too much attention. T.S. Eliot wrote that “we shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”…old friends made new again.