Change, Baby

 "Discipline of yourself is absolutely necessary before the power of God is given to you.  When you see others manifesting the power of God, you probably have not seen the discipline that went before.  They made themselves ready."

I think often about the relationships I have in my life.  I am blessed and grateful for these relationships.  I realize that there are many people who don't have anyone that they can talk to on a deep and personal level.  Many people can't even connect with family members in more than a superficial manner.  I am so grateful that I have these people in my life that I've actually written down . . . with a pen on paper . . . lists of my friends.  I look at them often.  I want to remember how blessed I am.  There are profound relationships that have been around for decades and there are profound relationships that I've developed in the 10 years or so I've been in California.  There are people from Ohio that I've known for 30 years.  And there is a constantly evolving list of good friends of the moment who may or may not hang in there or drift away.  

On the other hand people and relationships cause me most of the angst that I have in my life.  So there's that and that, my friends, is a conundrum.  It is a concept in conflict with itself.

I read an opinion piece recently about how CoVid has interfered with our normal way of socializing.  This sociologist was of the opinion that most of us try to maintain too many relationships, that most of us can handle 6 or 8 really deep ones, that they take a lot of work, that maybe it's a good thing to have let some of the more peripheral ones lapse while we've been more or less isolated.  We really don't have the time or interest to stay current with people we play tennis with or see at a book club.  They're casual relationships and they don't deserve more than a glancing attention.

This has been on my mind as I begin to attend live meetings again and as I see a very different landscape.  People I've known for a long time have gone to other meetings or drifted away completely.  Some of them were pretty intense relationships at the time.  Maybe they'll rekindle or maybe they won't.  It's going to be important for me to realize this as I move forward.  The Big Picture, man.  

I was at a new coffee shop yesterday.  The one I used to frequent moved to a new, less convenient location.  I knew a lot of the employees there on a somewhat personal basis but now they're all gone, forever.  I'm getting to know the kids who work at the new shop.  This is fun.  I miss the old kids but now I have some new kids.  While I was sipping a flat white and reading the paper I idly listened to a couple of men talking in French at the next table.  Relentlessly outgoing and curious I engaged one of the young men after his friend left.  We had a really excellent conversation for about a half hour.  This was fun, too.  I have no illusions this is going to develop into anything more that an occasional brief chat but who knows?  Some relationships hang in there, some don't, and I often have no idea which is which.

Change, baby.