The Divergence; The Convergence

It has been a perfectly lovely afternoon in Streeterville. The sky above is blue. The lake below it is blue. It is 56 degrees and sunny at the Mini. It was so lovely that I went out to get a haircut but they couldn't get me in this afternoon so I put it off until tomorrow and went for a run instead. The weather is just warm enough for a really pleasant run. Too bad Babs is in Princeton and was not able to join me.

It's funny how lives intertwine over time, just as others are unwinding and separating. When I was 19 years old I wrote a poem called "Change is Permanent." That thought comes back to me at times, and I just searched and I can't find my poetry notebook anywhere. When Babs gets back I need to get her to help me find it. All I can remember of the poem is the line, "I've pondered and questioned. It all seems quite clear. Change is the only thing permanent here." How true.

Anyway, my parents have both passed on. My two older brothers are grandparents and are consumed with their Texas lives. We correspond via e-mail and send birthday and Christmas greetings. Every two or three years someone goes to visit someone for a couple of days. Our lives have diverged. My two sisters have become estranged. They are consumed with a religious life that demands that they go to church twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday evening. Then there are the extra functions with friends from church, and various assorted extra church functions. They do not smoke. They do not drink. They do not dance. They do not visit brothers who have wine with dinner, do not attend church, and live on 14th floors of high rises in large scary cities. They are fundamentalists. They are the religious right incarnate. Our lives are wayyyy diverged.

I have cousins who range from suburban conservative to rural redneck and frankly I haven't interacted with most of them since I left home to go to college in 1968. Weddings and funerals there. My childhood friends and friends of my youth, well we all had agendas to pursue and who knows where they all are or what they're up to. A select few have elected to friend me on Facebook. Usually what I discover is that my life and their lives are way different. We have diverged.

Along the way, I have lived in Little Rock and Jonesboro, Arkansas, Carbondale, Hoffman Estates, Lombard, and Chicago, Illinois, Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Twice), and on the island of Guam in the Western Pacific. I have made friends in every place I have moved. After you move again, it's difficult to keep up with people. You move on physically, mentally, psychologically, and socially, as do they. You diverge.

Since 1985, the one constant has been Babs, my wife and life companion. It's funny, but I see her family more often than I do my own blood relatives. I can go for holidays at her family's home and have a cocktail and relax without feeling chastised. I can not go to church when I visit them and it's OK. They are in-laws though. Babs is the one best friend through it all. We spend time together. We eat together. We sleep together. We travel together. We share all that life throws at one another. We have converged. We are a unit. We are a family.

When all else is wrong. When all else is right. When you just need someone to lean on for whatever reason. That is when you (I) need that family unit. In this case, that means I need Babs and she needs me, when life gets tough and you need someone to help you along, or when life is really good and you need someone to share it with. Unfortunately, that means that when life's twists and turns separates us from one another for a day, for a week, whatever, it means a sense of loss. We have converged and to a great extent are dependent on one another psychologically, emotionally, socially.

There are those who, no doubt, think this is an unhealthy relationship, that we have become too dependent on one another. Don't get me wrong. We survive. We adapt. We just miss one another when we are separated. We each need that other psyche to bounce stuff off of. We like to call one another in the evening and report the day's doings. Then comes bedtime and that other side of the bed is empty. Nobody there but the cats, and they don't listen to you worth a damn. They take love, but don't really give it back very well, except on rare occasions when they feel like it.

What I'm getting at I suppose, is that this convergence, this sharing, this feeling that you can't do without someone special who has shared 20 plus years of your life with you and probably will share 20-30-40 years more is more than just a simple convergence. Going back to that change poem I wrote when I was 19, change is permanent. It's just that in some cases, you find someone to grow and change with you, to share the whole ride with you. What I'm talking about is love.

Have a great day boys and girls, and may all of you have a convergence.