WE CHANGE IN LAYERS - UNEVENLY

At the mall one fine afternoon, I came across my childhood friend who I hadn’t seen for quite a long time. He was quick to recognize me and did it with a rousing bear hug ...

“Heyyy, pumpkin, great to see you!!” Ugh! He still calls me that. Seeing my grimace he laughed “Yeah pumpkin!!" and laughed so loud apparently enjoying my embarrassment. "Btw, meet my wife, Liza”.

I shrieked with surprise and delight when I saw her as she came walking towards us – Liza, my pal in school! We were buddies in our last year.

“So this is why you hadn’t been in touch all these years!” I giggled. She laughed heartily showing her familiar dimples. “We moved to San Francisco after the wedding. I didn’t know where to write you then because you were nowhere to be found, silly!”

I grimaced “Yeah, I got busy with a job in the big city.. and lots of things. Ugh! Tell you all about it.”

We then moved to a coffee shop nearby and continued with our endless chatter and updates. Time flew until Martin reluctantly and halfheartedly broke off the chat and reminded Liza that they had yet to shop for a birthday gift for his mom. So we parted ways but agreed to meet for dinner at their place the following week.

Looking at them as they walked to the parking lot, I felt a sudden twinge of sadness. They have remained the same, true; and yet have changed too in some. I remembered something I have read before —

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension; and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm; childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

That quote brought me to this new understanding. Truly, we change unevenly, partially, in layers. We may be brilliant to one and childish to another person all in the same breath. We may be the cherished pumpkin of the past and yet also the modern career person of the present. A friend may tell me that I have changed in my perceptions about love and money. While another friend would tell me that I am still the homespun girl he always had known me to be. And all true for I have indeed changed from some old held viewpoints of long ago but have too retained and treasured the same homespun values my mother had taught me in my growing up years. On that thought, I realized that we don’t really leave the past behind even if change moves us along in time. We take it with us to the present and on to the future. This is what people see in us mixed and mingled as change does its work in bits, portions, areas, and layers of ourselves.

So as I stood there watching Martin and Liza pull away in their Chevy, I smiled to myself and bid goodbye to the sadness felt earlier. Nothing has been lost after all. More mature and changed in some ways as they appear to be now, still Martin and Liza carry with them the traces of good old friendships of long ago. We stand connected despite change. Amazing and beautiful, isn’t it?

WE'RE NEVER ALWAYS THE SAME PERSON REALLY

Meeting up with my close friends is a joy and such a bag of significance. The hours spent with them will end up revealing something odd or new but which never fail to tweak my interest. It amazes me no end to see a ‘different’ person coming to the lunch table every time and sharing her world with the rest of us. At one time I will be seeing starry eyes, deep smiles etched on sunny faces, or an amusing bounce in their gait. Then on the next get-together everything is replaced by furrowed brows or drooping mouth or attitudes gone stale.

Is that strange? - Maybe, maybe not.

What may appear to be ‘different’ may be simply life happening to that person -- The peeling off of unwanted layers of one’s existence. Life always does that – shaking off what needs to be discarded i.e. old thoughts, opinions, perspectives, perceptions, experiences, feelings. When these no longer have any use or don’t work as well as they used to or have worn itself out, then it should be rid of immediately. Otherwise it will only hold us back to where we want to go or where life wants to take us. Life will nudge us to learn new things which hopefully might help bring us to our better selves and too ease our continuing journey down the road of life.

We’re never always the same person really. That is, if we pay attention to the lessons life sends our way each time. And learn them well.


"All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives." -- Steven Spielberg