missing pieces

there's a thread titled "missing pieces" on my mama board right now. it's a mama talking about how she can't stand to lose the pieces to her kids toys...which i completely understand. i used to care about that stuff when my guys were little and none of them had pubic hair. but the title made me think of something else i've been thinking about these days...

a few years back, my girlfriend from high school, patsy, had been through a pretty devastating break up. now, patsy and i have been friends for over ten years...more like almost twenty...i mean, i knew her back in her vegetarian/health nut/running days. i'd sit and eat chips and smoke cigarettes and cheer her on when she'd run at the local track. she was the one who'd convince me to eat a salad every once in awhile, although i always tended to drench them in ranch dressing. i just didn't understand this push for health and sweat, i guess... anyway...so it was funny to me when i went to visit her a few years back, almost a year after this horrible break up she'd been through, to find that there was no food in her house. i mean, her fridge had a head of broccoli that was pretty old, a bottle of water, and a sonic slushy in it. and i think she had some rice in her pantry... now, this happened to be a time in my life where i was starting to understand the push for health and sweat stuff...when i was in pretty good shape...eating well, exercising. (i'd like to think i'm still there...just not as completely. maybe my ass is on the wagon, but my feet are dragging the ground...something like that.) so i made her take me to her local grocery to buy fruit, some yogurt, some beer (which we never even drank...like that would happen these days)...she cried at how good a fresh strawberry tasted...because she'd forgotten. that's when i figured friends are like banks...we deposit little pieces of ourselves in them so that we can get them back later, when we really need them.

so, another friend of mine has been going through some stuff that is centered, in part, on meeting an old friend from the past and the gift of receiving a missing piece of who you were...who that person remembers you as...and frankly, if we're going to go back twenty or so years, whose memory of you is really the right one? theirs or yours? for this friend, it's been a huge gift to get to see the beauty in the person she was then...she had issues, yeah...and dealing with those issues clouded who she remembered herself as. all the guilt made it hard to love who she was. but her old friend loved that person that she was...and was willing to share it with the woman she is now.

that may have come across as kind of incoherent...but i've mentioned meeting an old friend on facebook. i've met a number of them. it's been wild. a lot of them are kind of acquaintance-y people...it's nice to see how they're doing...see their kids, their families. it's good to reconnect, but there's probably not going to be a whole lot of day to day conversation going on. and a lot of them are people i shared a time in life with, not much one on one type of time to begin with. but tonight another one found me. and it's cool because i've been thinking about him a lot... it's just funny. all these glimpses of these people we were...these laughs we had...things we did...lives we had...spaces we've shared...it's neat to unite them with who we are now...watch the two versions dance together, find some commonalities.

anyway...i have a cold. and while that was a lot more focused than i thought it would be, i lost my train of thought. oh well...i know what i meant...
peace

history

i've said this word to my sons quite a bit the last twenty-four hours or so. i keep telling them that history seems like something that happened a long time ago. that we don't always realize history is being made. and they've been around for some history making events, but they were too young to remember it. this election they will remember. and i think it's given each of them pause for their own reasons and to process their own young perspectives.

it has been so long since i've felt buy in with so much of our government. i often talk to other parents about trying to get buy in from their kids on the policies of the family. it's so much easier when kids believe in or understand why they're being asked to do certain things. and it's the same with government. but i'm a good citizen...i don't have to totally buy into it to respect and follow things. but i feel differently now. watching the race be so close in so many states, you could really tell how each vote mattered. and seeing how great the electoral college margin was compared to the popular vote margin...kind of gave a little universal balance to the gore/bush election in 2000. it just seemed to be a healing event in so many ways and for so many folks.

it will be interesting to see how the next four years go. i feel excited about it. excited to see a segment of our country participate in an election for the first time. excited to see how that affects the progress of our nation in general. in a lot of ways, after the last eight years, there's really not that much further down to go, not that much more apathy to be felt. but last night, i felt like we were soaring... we went to bed praying for the health of our grandfather and for the health and safety of our president elect.

disjointed, yes. heartfelt, yeah, that too.
peace