Drifting In And Out Of Our Lives

It's strange how people drift in and out of our lives in patterns of randomness. One moment they appear, a part of your everyday existence and the next they're gone. Then you have to start adjusting your habits and routines as if they never were there in the first place. Of course when you're very young it's easier to make changes and then for in the grade school range it can be really difficult until you reach a certain age where it's almost expected and you don't even notice.

When I was in college people came and went with regularity. Some would hang around my group of friends for a time and then drift away or sometimes even leave school. I did that myself more than once. Often we would leave for the summer and then come back after having worked jobs and presumably saved some money to help offset the extreme poverty of being a student that we would soon have. Some of our friends would be gone with little to no explanation and inevitably there would be new ones to take their places. I'm still looking for some of those friends.

For me right now it's also an issue of family. Neither my wife nor myself have any family even close to this area which can make it rough. My family has only seen my son twice. My mother in law has seen him three or four times and my wife's brother and father who are in Peru only once. So we are drifting in and out of their lives as we are able to and the same applies to them. Because everyone lives so far away and the fact that we don't have a large amount of disposable income that makes it difficult to stay close and see each other.

Thankfully we have the use if the internet which makes it easier to post pictures and videos on my blog so that all of our family can keep up with us. There's also programs like Skype (if only I could get them to use it) or other video messenger programs available. More often than not though it's the cellphone that gets used the most. Luckily now my wife can call as much as she wants whenever she wants, even to Peru. I wish we had found this phone plan out before getting the large bills for going over our minutes.

The internet has also been resourceful in finding some of those old friends from the old days but still, as I said before, there are some that remain lost, stuck back in the old days of my memories. One way they can drift back into my life is by writing about them on my blog, looking at pictures and making them available to other old friends so that they can also let us all drift back into our old lives. Regrettably, we can't all remain together for the rest of our lives no matter how much we wish it could be sometimes. It's just not possible so we continue to drift and perhaps if we're lucky we can make it happen more frequently. At least I have some very good memories of times with family and friends to carry me through. Right now that has to be enough.

Published by Don Leach