I keep my address book in a "junk" drawer in the kitchen. I purchased this address book, when my son who is 17 was just a baby. Over the years, many new additions have been added as well as multiple changes to phone numbers and addresses. More recently, phone numbers get scribbled on tears of paper or napkins or scrawled on the back of a business card or take-out menu and eventually make their way back home and get tucked inside this address book. Or simply thrown in the drawer with the intention of the address book being their final resting place.
Each time I have to look for a phone number, I have to painstakingly sift through each piece of paper, large and small and half the time, never find what I'm looking for. With my need for organization in every area of my life, this is driving me insane. I finally linked more pain to not having it organized that I did to physically correcting the situation. (Yes, I consider it a situation.)
I bought a new address book with crisp, clean pages and even a line for email addresses which was not available in my current book. I went through every napkin, envelope, menu, business card and sticky note, recording the numbers and addresses in their corresponding section. It's been done for 3 days now and I haven't had to look up a single phone number.
One wouldn't think this domestic task could cause one to ponder the delicacies of life, but it has. As many additions were made to my list, there were almost as many deletions. A few deaths, but mostly friends and acquaintances who've drifted out of my life due to geographical location or a parting of ways. I reflected on those people who were at one time a part of my life and wondered about the short time they graced it. Were they placed in my path for my benefit, or I for theirs? And have we really changed that much that we have nothing in common anymore; that there is no reason to contact one another?
Then I started thinking about the chain of events that led to each new encounter and the unlikely consequences leading to a break down in friendships. I'm left to wonder, which friends will stay and which will be deleted from my new address book in another 17 years. Right now I can't imagine it any other way, but experience shows me that everything changes. The only physical evidence of past friendships is the ink in which their name resides in my address book.
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6 comments:
Ah Naive, change always happens and most of the time for the better, but not always. I have often found myself wondering what happened to friends who have disappeared from my life too. I have lost contact with every friend from highschool and wouldn't even know how to contact them.....but then again, I don't miss them or feel the need to get in touch!
Does that make me bad?
I went through the same types of feelings and reflections this Christmas, as I got myself a new address book as I do every 10 years or so. It's strange how life and travel companions change so, and you sometimes don't even notice till you look back.
There are so many people I've lost touch with YEARS ago, whom at the time I couldn't imagine ever not having them in my life. Odd. But ... Those who are meant to stay will stay. And all will in some sense, always be there.
Love you, sis ~ this was a great post.
In a discussion with Dr. Rik on this very subject:
People move in and out of our lives for purpose that we do not often understand. If we try to simplify and accept thier interaction as a Grace from God and not cloud it with our own glasses, an acceptence of thier coming and going and a thanfulness for this will happen.
Love your enemies - bless your Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
Interesting post...I have the same drawer as you do. I need to go through mine and redo it somehow. Most of mine is family and the friends that are in there were only ones I still talk to. I do have some I e-mail once in awhile just to say hi, but other than that the friends I have are my best ones.
The friends we make by choice, and not location or work related are usually the ones we have for life.
Great Post Naive! So very true....it's almost a scrapbook in it's own way. And it does allow for reflection upon where you've been and where you are today, just in the respect of friends. Clew hit it right - you just don't realize until you look back at how quickly time flies, or how people have come and gone.
I would still hold onto those napkins and cards....maybe in an envelope. Just for sentimentality's sake. ;)
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