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So...the past couple of days have not been fun. I seemed mostly over the stomach flu, until I got into the car and we started to drive home. We did a five-hour trip in nine hours, due to bad weather and holiday traffic, and I finally said I couldn't go on after being violently sick in the parking lot of a gas station. Fun times. :-/
So we got a motel room, which felt like heaven. Dramamine and less traffic both helped the drive today. And now, me chatting on IM, still on a bit of a Dramamine high. After I copy paste, I'm headed back to bed, or at least to lie down. I think there may be some stuff in here that I want to remember, though it's hard to say for sure. :-)
***
me: I've actually never spent Thanksgiving with friends.
me: Other than Dave, of course. :-)
friend: *smile* It's been a while, unfortunately, since I've spent it with family.
friend: There's a lot to be said for either.
me: *nod* We've done Passover with L the past couple of times and it's always fun.
friend: *nodnod*
me: This may be the dramamine talking, but lately it just feels like all of these bonds we each have with each other are so random. Like, why *these* parents, *those* grandparents? It all feels very contingent upon strange alignments of time and circumstance. And of course friendship is the same.
me: I was looking at old pictures of Dave's parents and his family, all of these total strangers...and of course, they're not to me *now*, but I never knew those people in the pictures. And I don't know that I would have sought them out had I been their age at the time, made them my friends. Which isn't an indictment, it's just strange, who we're yoked together with and why. I don't know that there is a 'why,' it just is what it is.
friend: *nod* I don't know that there is any why, either. And yet -- from these things, these people, we build ourselves a life.
me: Exactly.
me: They all seemed a little lost to me in the photos. And I wondered about my folks; they probably do too. Maybe everyone was a little lost in the seventies. :-)
friend: *laugh* I think you've got something there.
me: I guess it's kind of a reworking of the whole chance vs. choice paradigm, but somehow it feels a little different applied to relationships. (Not big-r relationships, just the general sense.)
me: Hey, can I copy/paste this into LJ? I might want to remember it later. I'll take your name out.
friend: Of course!
me: If you could say something wise now to kind of sum the whole thing up, that might be good. :-D
friend: *laugh* Let me try this...
friend: I think it's chance who we wind up with, at some level, but anything but how we treat them; friendship comes not just from the who but from the what, the how. The specifics might be different, but the broad painting -- that's all on us.
me: *giggle* Wow. You did a really nice job with that.
me: I would add that there do seem to be certain connections that have an element of grace, or seem to.
friend: Oh, no argument here. *smile*
So we got a motel room, which felt like heaven. Dramamine and less traffic both helped the drive today. And now, me chatting on IM, still on a bit of a Dramamine high. After I copy paste, I'm headed back to bed, or at least to lie down. I think there may be some stuff in here that I want to remember, though it's hard to say for sure. :-)
***
me: I've actually never spent Thanksgiving with friends.
me: Other than Dave, of course. :-)
friend: *smile* It's been a while, unfortunately, since I've spent it with family.
friend: There's a lot to be said for either.
me: *nod* We've done Passover with L the past couple of times and it's always fun.
friend: *nodnod*
me: This may be the dramamine talking, but lately it just feels like all of these bonds we each have with each other are so random. Like, why *these* parents, *those* grandparents? It all feels very contingent upon strange alignments of time and circumstance. And of course friendship is the same.
me: I was looking at old pictures of Dave's parents and his family, all of these total strangers...and of course, they're not to me *now*, but I never knew those people in the pictures. And I don't know that I would have sought them out had I been their age at the time, made them my friends. Which isn't an indictment, it's just strange, who we're yoked together with and why. I don't know that there is a 'why,' it just is what it is.
friend: *nod* I don't know that there is any why, either. And yet -- from these things, these people, we build ourselves a life.
me: Exactly.
me: They all seemed a little lost to me in the photos. And I wondered about my folks; they probably do too. Maybe everyone was a little lost in the seventies. :-)
friend: *laugh* I think you've got something there.
me: I guess it's kind of a reworking of the whole chance vs. choice paradigm, but somehow it feels a little different applied to relationships. (Not big-r relationships, just the general sense.)
me: Hey, can I copy/paste this into LJ? I might want to remember it later. I'll take your name out.
friend: Of course!
me: If you could say something wise now to kind of sum the whole thing up, that might be good. :-D
friend: *laugh* Let me try this...
friend: I think it's chance who we wind up with, at some level, but anything but how we treat them; friendship comes not just from the who but from the what, the how. The specifics might be different, but the broad painting -- that's all on us.
me: *giggle* Wow. You did a really nice job with that.
me: I would add that there do seem to be certain connections that have an element of grace, or seem to.
friend: Oh, no argument here. *smile*