And The Circle Tightens

One of the things that you spend a great deal of time doing as you get older is pondering; thinking of all manner of things that were part of your life and shaped you as a person. One of the most melancholy “ponders” is how dramatically your universe of significant people and relationships has shrunk. Now arguably, this is not true for everyone. Some extremely gregarious individuals may actually see their network expand but perhaps the emphasis should be on “significant” – the people that truly touched you; the ones who, for better or worse, made you what you are.

In measuring the quantum of my own tightening circle, I picked a starting date as a marker or milestone – 1994. This was perhaps the most eventful year of my life. I had a significant career challenge then advancement, my son and wife both had major surgeries, my mother almost died and my mother-in-law (and her brother) passed suddenly and unexpectedly. It was one of those years that I think occur for everyone – when life throws everything at you and you either come through or fall. And conveniently and quite coincidentally it is an even thirty years.  Not sure why that matters but it seems to. In those thirty years, I have lost almost fifty people who were important to me and the person that I have become. These were mentors, close friends, professional colleagues and family; people who made a difference to how I viewed the world and my place in it. They were irreplaceable – and the proof of that is that they remain lost and unsubstituted.

The overall effect of this diminishing personal landscape, in my case at least, is a tendency to retreat into oneself and focus on whatever is stable and certain in one’s life. This is a flawed strategy, of course, since it only serves to emphasize even more acutely the pace and thrash of change. One can also responds by becoming more involved in the peripheries of life and make new connections. I don’t think that these are ever as fulfilling as those that were a part of earlier times when almost everything was potential and an unrealized life to come. As the circle around you grows smaller and smaller, family should be the bulwark holding back the tightening noose with deeper and warmer relationships. In the absence of family or the presence of one that has become too insular and self-involved, you are alone.