I Can't Think Up A Title For This One

I believe that one of the accurate indicators of a true friendship is revealed when old friends meet up after a long absence.  With some people I feel like I'm continuing a conversation I had yesterday.  There are no awkward silences or stock questions like: "So . . . what's been going on?"  I hate that question when I'm talking to someone I haven't seen in two years.  I'm lucky if I know the numeral associated with today's date  - I'm supposed to recap two years?  "Well, I was happy, then I got depressed followed by a brief rage, Christmas was good, I had outpatient leg surgery where some dude stuck long needles into my musculature, and we went to Vietnam.  You?"

I need to remember this.  I put too much stock in regular contact, a technique that works for some people but not for others.  When I was newly gone from The Old City I tried to stay in touch with a bunch of people, including my buddy who just died.  If I called him, he would text back.  Once I objected, telling him that wasn't acceptable, it wasn't a tit for tat response, an effort that paled in comparison to mine.  He laughed and kept doing whatever he wanted.  Finally, I got it - he wasn't a phone guy and no amount of berating on my part was going to change this.  He was a show-up-for-regular-Saturday-lunch-every-Saturday guy.  I didn't go every week - I didn't like the dynamic of a big table full of guys - and he never called me on my spotty attendance.  I like the phone - he liked the lunch.

So I have been trying to release my mom and my dad and my old sponsor in my morning prayers.  I have also been trying to release The Old City and all of my friends there.  I don't want to be mad at these guys.  These are my guys.  And it has been 6 years since I left.  That's a chunk of time.  I'm much more comfortable with abstract prayers like this as opposed to specific requests for specific things, even when I temper such nonsense with the old "if it be your will" qualifier.  Prayers like this often exploit some weird, unexpected loophole, which burns my ass more often than not.

I also find that I learn through effort and I learn a lot by working through a difficulty.  My higher power never seems to strike me patient or tolerant or calm, preferring instead the irritating habit of placing an obstacle in my way that, once overcome, leads me to the solution I would rather absorb by osmosis.  My irritation at the deafening silence coming out of The Old City would indicate that my prayers of release have been hollow, empty words that I didn't believe.

Good for me.