I’m an observer of life. I think a lot of us are. Often, relationships are part of those observations.
Life is filled with relationships.
People come in and out of our personal world. Relationships soar and they fade.
It all seems rather random, as does the way this process often begins:
Your science teacher implements an alphabetical seating order and your future spouse ends up sitting next to you. A neighbor moves in next door, and you find you have similar interests and hobbies. You get a new job with a cubby next to a friendly co-worker. You meet a fellow walker while on your morning hike and you get to talking. A lady in the checkout lane in the grocery store smiles and you end up starting a conversation.
Others aren’t so random: your sister or brother. Your cousins. Your parents.
Sometimes relationships start out strong but fizzle quickly. Other times they are nothing more than lukewarm, but remain for years.
Sometimes they last for less than a minute, but impact us for much longer. Sometimes they last for millions of minutes and impact us for just as long.
Some relationships are fleeting. A random meeting. An exchange of smiles. And then they are gone. Over before every beginning almost.
Others are given the gift of time to grow.
Over the years, some march on, like the winds of time. Some (too many) fade — into nothingness or perhaps just the occasional phone call.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more aware of this process. So many of my friends, my family, my people, have become the occasional phone call.
We keep in touch, but not really, because we don’t really see each other and we certainly don’t talk every day like we used to.
But we don’t want to let it go, not completely. There is still something there. Or at least we want to think there is, or hope there is.
It is bittersweet — more bitter than sweet, but I guess it’s an unavoidable progression of the human experience.
I believe grief has accelerated this process in my life. (I like to blame lots of things on grief, but I think this one is warranted.)
In this acceleration, I am able to see things more clearly. (Yet another benefit of grief.)
When we are young, we are surrounded by lot and lots of people. As the years go by, that pool of people grows more and more shallow (in more ways than one.)
Because of life changes, the people we relied on and talked to every day become more distant, until they exist no more.
But there are some, the most special and reveled of relationships, that we just can’t let die. They become, what I’ve labeled to be relationship defined by the occasional phone call.
They are connections that we wish were still more intact — but they aren’t.
They are the connections that were so important to us at one point, but time and responsibilities and life got in the way.
They are people who should be important to us, and they are, but somehow other people and responsibilities came into our lives and the time to cultivate the connection was all but snuffed, until over the years, it simply fizzled into a phone call here and there.
We call because we aren’t ready to let go. We don’t want to.
But life marches on, as it is wont to do. People come and go into and out of our lives. We like to think relationships are permanent, but not many are.
And that’s okay.
People enter and exit our lives for a reason. Often the entering is easier and more welcomed, but perhaps the exit should be just the same. Each can teach us something — not only about life but about ourselves.
Because nothing is accidental. Not even a brief encounter, much less the occasional phone call.
— Jill Pertler’s column Slices of Life appears regularly in the Times. She can be reached at
slicescolumn@gmail.com.
