Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Next year is my high school class' 30th reunion. Now I know I'll never make it to Texas (which seems to be either the most central location for everyone or the place where the volunteers to organize it live) to be there with everyone who attends, but it's so neat to read in our notes to each other how people are, how their families are doing, who's having babies and getting married (yes, even after 45!), who's becoming grandparents, and who is becoming a parent to their parent.

I feel like I did way back then, even though I know I don't look the same. When I see pictures of everyone else I realize I'm not any different than they are... we're all showing our ages, but hey, we've worked hard to get where we are!

Our group of 60+ graduates were once together, coming from various backgrounds, yet similar in the sense that we lived at a boarding school and most of us did not live with our families. Now we are all spread out across the globe. It's a bond we have that most North American people can't relate to. Many of my classmates had been together at Rift Valley Academy (RVA) since elementary school. I didn't begin until Ninth Grade, and then I left, returning for our Senior year.

It's only recently I've been trying to figure out why I find it so hard to make and keep long-lasting friendships. I blame it all on the fact that if I knew I wouldn't be somewhere for longer than a year or two there wasn't any real point in making deep friendships. The problem was that just before I ended up moving again I found myself saying "to heck with it, I need a friend" and begin growing a new relationship. This happened over and over and the only person I hurt was myself.

Now I'm finding that I tend to make deeper relationships through facebook or just long distance, and I'm not sure if it's a security issue (they're far away as it is, and we can always keep in touch this way) or if it's because I'm scared to actually continue a relationship with someone in my town (which is a security issue)...

Anyways, enough of my blabbering for today. My goal is to try making more meaningful and lasting relationships with people, both ones in my community and ones who are far away.

1 comment:

Kathy Steeves Nutford said...

Dawn, I've been asking myself a similar question, as I discover that my 'close' friends are people I've never met, but communicate with every day, and I feel like I have no close friends here where I live. I think I figured it out, and it goes back to living together in dorms - you spend all your time with the people who are your friends, and so many people 'here' have never had that experience, and if they have, it was a college experience, which is a little bit different. People who would consider me a friend, whom I talk to at most every few days, I consider acquaintances, because friends are people I talk to all the time - and nowadays, that's online, and people I've never met IRL, but whom I have lots in common with - which is why I've gotten on lists and bulletin boards and now Facebook with!