catching up/nostalgia hits
I've been thinking lately about a lot of my old friends, the ones that I don't see anymore. I guess this is bound to happen when you get older but I miss them!
Many have been lost to early demise but there are others who have simply disappeared, moved away and/or changed phone numbers and aren't on Facebook or otherwise online so I can't find them!
What made me think of these people was getting a Facebook notification that I might know a certain person and sure enough it was someone from the past who has just opened a Facebook account. I was thrilled and friended him right away. He is the male half of a husband and wife team that we were very friendly with up to about 25 years ago. Sadly, he and his wife are no longer together. They have a daughter the same age as our Olivia, so 33 now. We haven't had much contact with him yet - he posted that he had just bought a new iPad and it was doing strange things such as not letting him post and/or changing some things that he'd written. I guess he isn't used to Auto Correct!
Making contact with him also brought up some old baggage that I feel sad about. It's that I may not have treated some people that I cared about very well in the past. I've always prided myself on being a 'nice person' but maybe that was only in a superficial way. I've always tried to be non-judgmental and sympathetic to other peoples' problems but in other ways I think I've let some of my friends down. Self-reflection has led me to believe that sometimes I have 'used' people and not given them very much in return. By that I don't mean by not paying them for things they've done but by neglecting them once they've done something for me. For that I am truly sorry and I wish it had never happened.
I find that I have an aversion to too much closeness, or what I believe that to be. I've never enjoyed things like long phone calls when there is really nothing to talk about, or visiting other peoples' houses when there is nothing to do. I do remember getting together with two other couples every Saturday night before we all had children. We would play euchre, drink wine, eat good food and watch Saturday Night Live back in the day when John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd were on the show, among other greats. We made it a regular thing and I enjoyed it because we had specific things to do, the company was enjoyable and we had a set time to go home (when SNL was over).
Now I find I don't much enjoy going out at all - at least I find I have anxiety over the anticipation of going out. I don't like the traveling to get there - mainly I'm scared of the traffic and the way people drive these days, or maybe it's because I've slowed down. But what usually happens is that once I get there I really enjoy being wherever that is. Like yesterday - I took the commuter train into Toronto to meet my sister and brother, to go visit our parents' grave site at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Then we went for lunch at a really nice restaurant, The Granite Brewery, which serves English-style pub food. I had an almond-crusted sole fillet with basmati rice and a simple green salad, my sister had a delicious looking shrimp linguine and my brother had his usual - a club house sandwich, but at least he tried the home-brewed beer. We talked, laughed a lot, got a little rowdy (luckily the restaurant wasn't very busy) and thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. It took me right back to our childhoods because we all got along extremely well. Now we're all so busy with our immediate families and hardly see each other anymore although we do keep in touch online or via phone calls.
All in all yesterday was a very enjoyable day although I didn't particularly enjoy the trip down on the train full of Blue Jays fans (it was too crowded and noisy for me) but I made sure to go home before the baseball crowd got out so the trip back was much better. And at least it didn't rain yesterday, the first day in awhile!
Many have been lost to early demise but there are others who have simply disappeared, moved away and/or changed phone numbers and aren't on Facebook or otherwise online so I can't find them!
What made me think of these people was getting a Facebook notification that I might know a certain person and sure enough it was someone from the past who has just opened a Facebook account. I was thrilled and friended him right away. He is the male half of a husband and wife team that we were very friendly with up to about 25 years ago. Sadly, he and his wife are no longer together. They have a daughter the same age as our Olivia, so 33 now. We haven't had much contact with him yet - he posted that he had just bought a new iPad and it was doing strange things such as not letting him post and/or changing some things that he'd written. I guess he isn't used to Auto Correct!
Making contact with him also brought up some old baggage that I feel sad about. It's that I may not have treated some people that I cared about very well in the past. I've always prided myself on being a 'nice person' but maybe that was only in a superficial way. I've always tried to be non-judgmental and sympathetic to other peoples' problems but in other ways I think I've let some of my friends down. Self-reflection has led me to believe that sometimes I have 'used' people and not given them very much in return. By that I don't mean by not paying them for things they've done but by neglecting them once they've done something for me. For that I am truly sorry and I wish it had never happened.
I find that I have an aversion to too much closeness, or what I believe that to be. I've never enjoyed things like long phone calls when there is really nothing to talk about, or visiting other peoples' houses when there is nothing to do. I do remember getting together with two other couples every Saturday night before we all had children. We would play euchre, drink wine, eat good food and watch Saturday Night Live back in the day when John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd were on the show, among other greats. We made it a regular thing and I enjoyed it because we had specific things to do, the company was enjoyable and we had a set time to go home (when SNL was over).
Now I find I don't much enjoy going out at all - at least I find I have anxiety over the anticipation of going out. I don't like the traveling to get there - mainly I'm scared of the traffic and the way people drive these days, or maybe it's because I've slowed down. But what usually happens is that once I get there I really enjoy being wherever that is. Like yesterday - I took the commuter train into Toronto to meet my sister and brother, to go visit our parents' grave site at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Then we went for lunch at a really nice restaurant, The Granite Brewery, which serves English-style pub food. I had an almond-crusted sole fillet with basmati rice and a simple green salad, my sister had a delicious looking shrimp linguine and my brother had his usual - a club house sandwich, but at least he tried the home-brewed beer. We talked, laughed a lot, got a little rowdy (luckily the restaurant wasn't very busy) and thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. It took me right back to our childhoods because we all got along extremely well. Now we're all so busy with our immediate families and hardly see each other anymore although we do keep in touch online or via phone calls.
All in all yesterday was a very enjoyable day although I didn't particularly enjoy the trip down on the train full of Blue Jays fans (it was too crowded and noisy for me) but I made sure to go home before the baseball crowd got out so the trip back was much better. And at least it didn't rain yesterday, the first day in awhile!