8.04.2008

The art of losing

A very famous poem speaks of losing - of losing keys, time, and eventually, a relationship.

I feel like I'm mastering the art of losing people in my life.

It seems as if time is just zipping by. It's filled with all kinds of things - commitments, work, family, crisis, sleep. Everything that takes up my time is legitimate - it all belongs, it all must be heeded, and nothing really can be cancelled. But as my time is filled, I'm steadily losing people.

I've lost my best friends from high school. Granted, one of them moved to Switzerland on me, got married to an international, gorgeous genius, and now resides in Oxford. We kept in touch faithfully by email, until of course time came and ate everything all up. Now, we're lucky if every few months an email gets sent.

Another of those best friends is now married to an ex of mine...they went to a university 4 hours from here and while I stayed back, they grew up together and in love. I didn't go to their wedding because we had a family wedding up north on the same day and it pulled rank. I missed out on that moment when they finally solidified a future 7 years in the making.

Other best friends live in the same region that I do - distance and space are not the issue. Time is. People that I relied on, people that I grew up with, people that helped me become me have disappeared completely from my life.

Losing these people is not the most difficult part. It's knowing that I've lost them or am in the process of losing them completely that hurts the most. I know that I'm out of touch. In fact, I'm ranked on Facebook as the friend who is the most "absentee." And I know that only I can fix it and make it better.

Yet I plow through my life of commitments, work, family, crisis, and sleep, with hardly any time to do my hair, let alone connect for hours with old friends, never really getting back what I've lost.

I've mastered the art of losing, but I would love to master the art of finding, reclaiming, and ultimately, holding onto...because every moment lost is a moment gone forever.