Saturday, January 13, 2007

A tapestry of relationships

For some years now I've sent greetings to friends and family for New Year's, figuring that it'd have more of a chance of being read (yes, I write one of THOSE letters).

Usually I get them in the mail shortly after New Year's Day. Not this year. They're going out today.

Looking at all those names in my card list, though, conjures such memories. I send mostly to family these days with a smattering of friends from our previous lives, and it seems that every year a few more drop off the list. Lives go forward, and sometimes it's time to let previous relationships go.

There's a popular e-mail piece titled "A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime" which speaks to the relationships we encounter throughout our lives. I can look at my Christmas card lists and clearly see these different friendships through the years.

I'm a very loyal person, however, and I'm also a very curious one. I want to know what's happened to these people I knew and loved long ago: what did they do? Were they happy? What was their life like, at least until now? If I knew their children, what happened to them? Are they still married (or did they get married)?

When you let a past relationship go, it's like reading a story without ever knowing the ending.

And yet I can admit to myself that I really have very little in common anymore with many people I knew 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. We were friends then for specific reasons: our lives shared common elements.

I can point to the seasonal friends, the ones who came into my life either to teach me something or for me to teach them something. Once those lessons were learned, we took them away with us and our paths split. And yet my life would have been so different had I not met them!

Most precious, and most rare, are the lifetime friends. Family members count here: even when we see each other rarely, we share a connection that transcends life experiences. Oh, we might not be close either emotionally or physically, and our lives and belief systems may be very different, but we are family.

I can count on one hand my lifetime friendships, though, and these are precious. These are the friends who know you and love you, warts and all. They are the ones with whom you can pick up where you left off, even if it's been years since you've seen each other. You have a soul connection.

When I address envelopes and fold letters, and add little personal notes, I hold each person in my mind, and send them love and blessings for where they are now. No matter if they're reason, season, or lifetime friends, at least for those few moments I remember our relationship and give thanks for it, acknowledging its importance to my life and to where I am now.

I may never know the endings to all the stories I have in my Christmas card list, but my life is a tapestry of those story threads. And as I send letters to those who still have running threads in that fabric, I am grateful that I am still part of their story too.

My current book is Picoult's The Perfect Match.

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