Past Lives

 

Just a bit of a random entry, about life stuff that makes me reflect. Last week we got together with a few people that I went to church with from about 5^th grade through college. We went to a small Baptist church called Hillside with Grandpa Ken and Grandma Patty. There were only ever about 15 or so kids near my age range, but about 8 of us were closer and spent all those years together. They were not my closest group of friends since I didn’t attend school with any of them, and yet we had a lot of meaningful moments together, as well as the fact that I dated a few of the girls.

The strange thing was, well I guess its not all that strange to grow apart after living very different lives the past 15 years, but the strange thing was I had this feeling I was looking at them from a distance. Maybe a better way to put it is walking down a street, and you see someone familiar approach, but you are with friends and they are as well, so you don’t stop to speak, you just make eye contact as you pass, silent recognitions in each of you that there was once familiarity, intimacy, a closeness, but that has passed, and would be difficult to rebuild.

We took you guys to the park with us to meet them, and two of the girls, now women, that I was closer to were there. We mostly made small talk, each of us being parents, nearing 40, the life we knew with one another seemed so very ethereal. I remember Jenna used to be hilarious, she and I would joke constantly, she could light up any room. When my grandfather died she came to the funeral to be there with me. I hung out with her friends and her on the weekends sometimes, we watched countless movies together, we kissed once, but immediately realized we were only every supposed to be friends- it was a pretty funny and instant mutual understanding. Kandy was there as well. She was my first girlfriend, yea at a small church you kind of end up dating everyone at some point. We went to Alt rock concerts together, she always wanted to be a surfer girl, and loved ska music. She was really wholesome, and I always loved that. I remembered sitting on a beach with her while we were youth group leaders at a place called Camp Surf in San Diego. I had just started dating your mother, I don’t think she was dating the man that would eventually become her husband yet. I just remember talking in the moonlight, most likely about life and dreams, I don’t remember the content, just that we were there once together in a place she loved and wanted to remain.

You might live one life, but it seems you often live many, and sometimes the people who are very important to you are only so for a season, a fellow traveler for part of the trail, but they have a different destination that eventually diverges from yours. I feel so melancholy about it at times, but that might just be my yearning for youth. I often feel the same way when I see videos of you three when you were younger. It’s the knowledge that I existed with you in that place, and the gladness for the joy we shared, but the pain that you have matured, and are no longer fully who you were then. Your little voices, innocence, outright wonder, unabashed love. The bible says at the end of our lives we will pass through the fire, that we will not be burned, but that we will smell like smoke. The fire is to remove the worldly things, things that must remain behind. When I pass through you will remain, God has made you a part of me, the love I hold for you, the joy you wove though my life, it is eternal.

Girls, I tell you some of the most meaningful relationships I had growing up were with women. I didn’t date all of them, some I wanted to, others were always just friends. I didn’t get to grow up with sisters so perhaps that is why they had even more of an impact on me. As women it will be tough for you sometimes, I am sure, some guys you hang out with will most likely always harbor a quiet desire to be more than your friend, maybe if they are lucky it will be reciprocated. Others will just be like brothers, ones that look out for you, that know a part of you they feel called to protect because you are special to them. It is a beautiful unique thing to be non-romantic friends with people of the opposite sex. I pray for your friends almost every week, because they are such an important part of life. Love you girls.