Friday, May 14, 2004
Walking in the Park and Reminiscing
I left my footprint in the concrete outside the administration building the other day. Like the loving bumble of a silent film, I had my nose buried in a book, wasn't looking where I was walking, and entered my stride into posterity. I can go by and see it now, along with the ubiquitous sign of eternal love, two sets of initials carved in hardened rock, circled by a delicate, fanciful heart. My tread is already starting to crumble at the bottom, but the shape of my foot is recongnizable, and I call place my foot snugly in the depression and call it my own.
How much of what I do has that kind of permanent impact? Virtually everything I do does have a lasting impression with my family, to be sure, but what of those not closest tome? What of friends?
I had close friends once. In high school, in college, one of two thereafter. When proximity waned, the ties that bonded us waned too. I still keep in touch with some, on and off again, but there is no one that I have the same connection with anymore. Even at work, I have the feeling that my relationships with others are tenuous and sometimes have no lasting connection. When I move on, or they move on, the footprints I have left will spring back to shape, not as if carved in rock, but rather as if I have walked across a dewy meadow, and the grass lazily lifted itself back after each stride. Today, my closest friend is Kristin, which is right and how it should be. But after her my closest friends are hundred of miles away and to whom I only speak to in brief messages over the internet.
I'm a shy person. I don't talk to people often unless I have gotten to know them, and then I can't be shut up, even when I know I am rambling about something they really don't care to listen to. Despite my timidity, I really feel that once I make that effort to step out and extend my hand, it is my onus to perpetually stick that hand out, time and time again. I invite myself to be with my friends, I ask to accompany them and to go and do things. And when I continually impose myself, I can't help but feel that they resent my intrusions, even if in fact they don't.
I'd like to have friends that I felt were part of my life not out of convenience, but out of a genuine feeling of having something in common with me. Kristin has this more so than me, in that she has friends who are busy in bringing up families and whom she spends a lot of time with. She has strong bonds with them that I think transcend just a matter of location. They've made lasting footprints on each other's minds and hearts. I'd like to do the same, some time.
If I already have, let me know. A happy Jeff is always better than a Maudlin Jeff :)
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