Strange things
Aug. 23rd, 2009 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mwbworldWell, I have to admit beyond the the awful heat and humidity knocking me for a loop I've been quiet for a while because I've been digesting some disturbing news. I learned indirectly that someone I used to be friends with back when I was in college, but lost touch with over the years, had died recently.
Admittedly we hadn't been friends for many years and hadn't spoken in all that time, but still it is sad and disturbing.
Even more disturbing is the fact that it is the second person I was friends with back then and lost touch with over the years that I know of who had died.
I think that sort of news triggers a bizarre cascade of nostalgia in folks as it filters out, because I'm suddenly starting to hear from folks I hadn't heard from in years.
Overall, we are all young enough that such deaths are still kind of shocking to most of them. I'm a little more seasoned since, because of various reasons, I grew up with a much more elderly family and extended family so I went to a lot of funerals when I was fairly young. So frankly many, many years before my peers I'd not only gone through accepting such things as a part of life, but also have been an orphan for many years. I'm literally the last left in my family (no siblings, no parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins less than distant second or third ones.)
So a lot of folks I knew back then are just starting to experience what I went through back then, and it's a shocking reminder of their own mortality perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Yet another stage in growing older.
Well, I still plan to keep to my principles - studiously avoiding the the worst cliches:
Admittedly we hadn't been friends for many years and hadn't spoken in all that time, but still it is sad and disturbing.
Even more disturbing is the fact that it is the second person I was friends with back then and lost touch with over the years that I know of who had died.
I think that sort of news triggers a bizarre cascade of nostalgia in folks as it filters out, because I'm suddenly starting to hear from folks I hadn't heard from in years.
Overall, we are all young enough that such deaths are still kind of shocking to most of them. I'm a little more seasoned since, because of various reasons, I grew up with a much more elderly family and extended family so I went to a lot of funerals when I was fairly young. So frankly many, many years before my peers I'd not only gone through accepting such things as a part of life, but also have been an orphan for many years. I'm literally the last left in my family (no siblings, no parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins less than distant second or third ones.)
So a lot of folks I knew back then are just starting to experience what I went through back then, and it's a shocking reminder of their own mortality perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Yet another stage in growing older.
Well, I still plan to keep to my principles - studiously avoiding the the worst cliches:
- I will never play or watch golf
- Bingo is, not now, nor will never be an option
- Bermuda shorts shall never be part of my wardrobe
- The words: "in my day", "good old days" etc. shall never cross my lips
- Never will I consider meals I've eaten years ago to be a suitable topic of conversation
- I also carefully avoid all reunions - no HS or college ones ever