The thing about old friends, for better or for worse, is that you don't have to start over. You have a real history that is common ground. At my reunion it was amazing to see people who knew my parents and my brothers and sisters. After I got divorced, after 20 years of marriage, and moved to Marblehead, MA, my new friends had never known me married. It was weird. They would say things about their husband, or whomever, and then imply that I couldn't understand because I was single. In almost every case I had been married a lot longer than they had, but they hadn't known me then.
Certain experiences, of course, make the bonds stronger. If people go through a disaster together, if they go through a rigorous training together, if they were children together, then there are ties that don't fade with time.
But then I look at my ex-husband and wonder. Did I ever know him at all? I had an idea of him that was one way. I think I created him in my mind and lived out a kind of fantasy of who he was. When I see him now, I don't know him. This is not a good thing or a bad thing. It just is what is happening. It is possible that the blinders that I wore have gone away. It is possible that we have changed.
Do we really change as we grow older or do we just become more who we always were? The only group I ever officially joined in my life was the Veterans for Peace. I loved these guys because they had all been through a real transformation. They changed from government puppet warriors to warriors of peace. But there is the rub. They were still warriors They had changed their deepest values (or maybe discovered them) but they approached the business of peace making with the approach of a military campaign. They are a strong and effective force in the world. They accepted me. I told them I fought the Vietnam War on the streets of America not in South East Asia. True, but my experience was flippant and light weight. My contribution to our group was my experience with nonviolent action which was something.
So , what part of us changes and what part becomes more of the same..slightly more exaggerated each year? I always had a mystical bent. Several childhood memories come to mind. I remember being dressed in white and walking in a procession led by nuns in celebration of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I can still feel how I felt almost overwhelmed with the beauty of the flowers and the simple songs and the adoration we shared One time about the age of twelve, I sat in Christ the King Church in Worcester, MA and stared at one of the Stations of the Cross, waiting for my empathy of Christ's suffering to bring me to the "bliss". At that time I got a little depressed when I didn't turn into a saint immediately. I went home and started reading The Lives of the Saints. I couldn't picture my life unfolding without eating for thirty years or bleeding from the stigmata until I died from lack of blood. Somehow my mystical inclinations have developed along different lines. But the impulses were there as long as I can remember.
Some parts of us change. Sometimes we can shed shit we have picked up along our path, sometimes it is our downfall. I have less and less credence to give to the nurture piece of "Nature vs Nurture" and more and more inclination to go all the way with Karma. Everything has a cause and everything has an effect, Amen.
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