Geography

Interesting... I was looking for an old file on my flash drive and came across some old blog posts I had from a previous website. One particular entry just needed to be posted beside yesterday's entry about "clicks".

Original post: 1/2/08

Geography


I always knew I hated geography in school. I was good at it, but I hated it. Some things never change.

I've recently been consumed by thoughts about geography again. Not the kind of geography you're thinking though.... it's the kind of geography that keeps friends distant.

I have some amazing friends hundreds of miles away, and even with so many miles between us, we're never far apart. I have some amazing friends in the same area code, and it feels like there are many miles between us. So I've realized that the geography that distances friendships isn't the kind that can be measured with an odometer.

It's the kind that can only be experienced. Little twists and turns in life that simply put you at a different place. Not a few towns away, but a few situations apart. It's a strange place when friends start defining each other as "the married ones" or "the single ones"... the parents, the ones who don't have kids yet, don't want kids, the one with the job that keeps her busy or the bad luck that's hit recently.

It's an odd sensation when the friends from 10 years ago haven't heard about the latest news, but they can be the most comforting souls to be around... the friends of now and here feel the furthest away... and yet somehow one or two of those friends from back then make you wonder what keeps your friendship going.
It's a bittersweet feeling when you realize that because you're "settling" it builds a bit of a wall you can't see through... I could step over it, but I'm not sure what's on the other side anymore, and honestly, don't know that I want to. It's a place of comfort when you don't need to see the other side, yet it's a place of loneliness when you realize not many people are willing to climb the wall and stand beside you.

It's an amazing feeling though when someone does climb that wall to be with you.

Have you ever thought about the friends you have? How they became friends? Initially, it's all about geography - the this city is in this state kind. Then it's all about the experiences you have that make up the map of how you got where you are. You realize that the new geography you have to understand is all about choices we make. A decision to call or go or stay or do... to be with or without... to need or not... to want or waive... to be comfortable enough to ask questions and get the wrong answer but love them anyway... to be secure enough to ask a question that goes unanswered...

Are you friends because you're really friends... or are you friends because you've always been friends?

I wish I could figure out just how to take those miles away. Not the mile markers that give us a reason to relate, but the turns that take us to different places, where we suddenly don't know where we are.