Things That Slip Away

I’ve noticed in the past year or so that some things I thought were once a necessity in my life, have slipped away. Little by little, bit by bit, until one day I looked up and realized they were no longer there. Or if they were still there, they were standing off in the distance, a blurred apparition, fuzzily outlined by the passage of time.

I know the cause of the fade away, and I take partial responsibility for it, but in some ways I realize that’s just a part of life. Things change, people grow, we move from one phase of our life to another and we don’t always pack everything up to take with us when we go. Maybe I’ll go back and get it later, it’s hard to say, but for now I’ve walked away. Not intentionally, but there you have it. I wandered off, lost in my own thoughts, and when I came back to earth I was in a different place.

When I made the decision to make writing a priority in my life, I never envisioned what this single-minded purpose would alter, how it would take over my life in little ways until it filled all the empty spaces and encroached on some of the others that were already filled up with other things.

Hobbies that used to occupy my free time are now things I look at and say, I really should get to that. But then I don’t, and the desire to make myself do it no longer pulls at me. Places I used to frequent are rarely seen anymore, and when I happen by now, they’ve been renovated, changed. Much like I have. Oddly the slippage of these things doesn’t seem to bother me. It’s more like a footnote in my history. All save for one.

Friendships that were once the life blood of my existence have turned to drive-by emails, promises to get together, failed attempts, promises to try again. I know, for the most part we will hook up again, and when we do it will be like no time has passed. My friends have been extremely supportive of my quest to make a career of my writing, and for that I am infinitely grateful. But some I feel have left a large void, as if in making the decision to move forward I have caused a breach that may never be refilled. It saddens me if this is true, and it surprises me more that I am not willing to slow down, or step back, or stop altogether to wait or fix or retrieve. Once I would have. Now I can’t. I’m not even sure they would want me to.

I don’t know what that says about me, about who I have become. Has my single-minded drive turned me into a selfish person, so wrapped up in my own need to chase a dream that I have lost touch with what’s around me? Or is this just another phase of life, and I need to follow my heart and trust that things will work out in the end? I’m not sure. I guess in this case time will tell. Some bonds, I think - I hope, are too strong to break, others perhaps were never really bonds at all, but just something we hung on to when we needed them, then let go when the time came to move on.