Over the past four weeks I have attended a wedding, a 50th Wedding Anniversary "Shed Party" and a college graduation party for a 40-something who has tackled his first advanced degree in pursuit of yet a more advanced degree. All three events were centered in relationships established in my youth or during the years during which my children were growing up.
In each of these situations, I saw people that used to be part of my life on a regular basis. Since moving to the "cities" in late 1998 I have had no contact with most of them, some contact with others and kept close contact with a treasured few.
I had a great time at each of these events and enjoyed conversations with everyone. And I had a chance to see once again how perspective informs the conversation. For many of my peers, the conversation began with I haven't see you in a long time. Where do you live now? How long have you been retired? (like they don't already know the answers to all these questions) to I have heard you have a really good life and now I see you do to oh my gosh, how are you? What are you doing now? and ... ... ...
Most interesting for me are the oh my gosh how are you, what are you doing now questions that came from my kids peers! They expect that life moves on, that people make new choices. On the other hand, questions from my peers tended to be all about the past or about retirement. When they learn that retirement is not a part of my reality (some days I long for it and others I never want it to come my way), they run completely out of things to say. Some of them have been retired for over 10 years.
My kids peers on the other hand are comfortable to talk and talk and talk about life being full of possibility and opportunity and they want to talk about what that is like in their lives and mine! Their lives have always been about change, they never knew life when people made a choice upon graduating from high school and lived that choice their entire lives.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about these exchanges is that I am renewing some connections and I am very excited about that. The new in all of this is that I am renewing connections with people who knew me in the past and now that we have reconnected, we want to know and spend time with each other in the now that is real and exciting!
So for today, I am calling this great gift Relationship Reset!
To add a little fun, I decided to do a Google Image Search using Relationship Restart ... almost without exception the images are couple based or are images of Dr. P. touting his most recent tome which of course uses the word relationship in the title and then he adds the word, rescue. Not what I am talking about here at all!
Oh geez, now I may need to ponder whether the word relationship is the right word to use in this Just Thinkin' post. As today's youth say over and over and over again, for today It is what it is! Period.
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