satellites connect us

Sometimes in life, some event scatters a cluster of friends outward from a shared space and common timeline.

-High school graduation.

-A church youth group slowly ages out -- going its separate ways, ending up worlds apart.

-A team finishes a season.

-Last night of summer camp.

-A best friend from elementary or middle school moves away in the summer.

-The final night of a play, after striking the stage.

-End of a spring semester of college.

-College graduation.

 

Like an exploding star of memories and matter, what seemed like one friend nucleus becomes multiple paths, spreading outward ... and away.

 

"You don't have to go home, 

but you can't stay here" -Semisonic, 'Closing Time'

There's an excitement to these new paths. 

 

There's a poignancy to stepping off the old paths.

Maintaining these ties to our once-clustered loved ones takes intentionality that it didn't once require.

 

"Nothing gold can stay," the poet reminds us. "A time to keep, a time to cast away," the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us.

The proximity we shared (and sometimes took for granted, though honestly, we didn't mean to) wasn't meant for forever. Goodbyes come at some point. Our times together become scattered.

"I guess this is growing up" -Blink 182, 'Dammit'

But: we're not without some hope. The metaphor of you and your friends scattering like an exploding star--forever outward and away--thankfully isn't the most accurate metaphor. It just can't be.

Why: because, Lord willing, there will be times to reconvene. There will be times to re-gather. There will be times to mourn together, to be together, and to laugh together, in a shared physical time and place again.

My vote for a more accurate metaphor is this: maybe we're more like a satellites orbiting a moon.

 

Times will come when our links to our friends gets tenuous. They disappear to the dark side of the moon (so to speak), and our signal contact gets interrupted. From other people's perspectives, we go around that side of the moon as well. But they (and we) can come back around. Our signal contact gets restored.

It's something exceptional when you and your people reconnect. The most unexpected tears of joy I let out on my wedding day was in our receiving line, seeing my dear college friend Vicki greet me and my wife. I knew she'd be there, so her presence wasn't a surprise. A vital, lovely, loyal friend from such a formative time of my life, traveling such a long way to witness a life milestone of mine. We once saw each other every day, but those days are gone. Seeing her there mattered the world to me. I'll never forget it.

The orbits can align again, for a time. 

We do get some say in where our orbits steer us.

So hold tightly to each other while you're here, and you're together. Enjoy the now. Don't worry that it feels like it's slipping away too fast; you can't help that.

It's doesn't have to be the beginning of the end. But perhaps, it's actually the end of some beginning. 

Different can still be good, but it'll rarely be the same sort of good. It'll be a new, usually unanticipated sort of good. Prepare to make effort to stay in touch. Don't let sporadic contact dishearten you for long. Send a text. Write the note. Make the drive. Book the travel. Walk together. Tell them when something makes you smile because it reminds you of them. Send a text again.

There's just nothing like old friends.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" -Semisonic, 'Closing Time'

peaking

We love the defying-the-odds stories, stories of second and third chances.

The true stories of athletes craftily finding ways to still compete (here, here, & here, for example). 

 

The true story of professional ballerina Wendy Whelan, who brilliantly kept on performing years past the typical age of ballerinas.

Or the true story of pro boxer George Foreman. He lost his boxing championship to Muhammad Ali at his peak physical condition of 25 years old...

then retired soon after, totally left the profession for 10 years...

...but regained the same boxing championship, about 20 years after losing to Ali.

 

Not just athletes, of course.

There's the true story of singer Mavis Staples, all of 71 years old when she won her inaugural Grammy ... even though she'd received her first Grammy nomination four (!!) decades earlier. 

I could go on with more examples. 

There's a reason we gravitate to these stories. It encourages us to hear examples of triumph with people who succeeded, despite not being at what we might presume is their peak condition.

For me, these true stories relieve me. I hope they relieve you as well.

 

They remind me that should an opportunity come my way, and even if I KNOW I'm not at my best, there still could be a way to work it out. It's a relief to remember that I can still have off days. 

 

You can have off days as well. Doesn't mean all is lost.

We don't know when our chances will come with whatever God would have us pursuing.

And yes, of course: we should try to make much of whatever chances we're given. But it's false to believe that we're gonna blow it unless we're at our absolute best.

Real-life examples remind us this isn't true. Real-life examples from ancient times and places remind us this isn't true.

So this is why I love stories of a near 50-year-old champ, a quinquagenarian ballerina, or a 71-year-old Grammy winner. No doubt they were not as sharp as their younger selves. 

 

Mavis's voice couldn't lilt about the higher notes like it once could. 

 

Wendy's joints required more upkeep than her 23-year-old self. 

 

Big George couldn't bounce around the boxing ring as deftly as his younger self.

They weren't at their peak. But they were still good enough for when the opportunity came. 

Whew.

 

the one about the smell of death in the dorm

Gather round, all y'all:

The week my freshman year of college that our wing smelled like putrid, maggot-y death remains a core memory for me.

The Monday started like any other. The temperature outside had dropped, and that this meant we didn't want to open our room's windows. This also meant the building's central heat was on. These details are important. 

Our res hall had a unique layout: 

Each floor had six single-sex wings, with a lounge in the middle on each floor. A floor may have two wings of females, and one wings of males, etc. Each wing had its own community-style bathroom. Each wing had a door to the lounge that could be shut.

By Tuesday morning, we noticed a smell. It smelled like something gamey was left to rot in someone's microfridge. 

But since we were almost two dozen 18-year-old males in one wing and sharing one bathroom, the presence of an unwelcome odor wasn't that uncommon. We figured the scent would dissipate.

I woke up earlier than usual on Wednesday morning. This was not by choice. 

That faint rotting smell had come into our room (I shared with two others). "Surely we're not the source of this?" I thought incredulously. The three of us all showered every day and didn't keep food in the room, so it didn't make sense why we'd be the source of the odor. I opened the door to the hallway to go use the bathroom down the hall.

The rotten, warmed smell of death permeated the hallway, way stronger than our room.

Dry heaving, I rushed to the bathroom. So the smell wasn't from us (thank God); it had just crept through the door. A putrid, a brazen mix of cheap, brined propane gas smell and sulfuric nastiness. Now our entire floor knew, and we could not figure out the cause.

It didn't help that one of the girls from the adjoining wing had (sensibly) shut the door to our wing. The funk of death was contained to our wing, but that only spiked its pungency for us.

By Thursday, it overpowered us. Something had died, somewhere. There's no mistaking that smell. Even the dude who was always in his room with his girlfriend had come out to complain about it.

I made arrangements to sleep in a friend's room that night. 

After my first class, I gulped in a big breath of air, opened the door to our wing, and ran to my room. 

While in the hallway, I saw a floormate, Chris. We nodded at each other in grim acknowledgment that we didn't want to talk, because talking meant taking in more breaths, and that meant taking in more of this foul funk of life departed. 

Chris' eyes suddenly widened, he shouted "oh [EXPLETIVE]!?!" and ran into his room.

He instantly sprinted back out of his room to the outside. He also happened to be carrying one of his jackets ... at arm's length. 

Not much time passed before we noticed the smell had lost some of its potency. Were we just delirious from the lack of non-contaminated oxygen? No, it was definitely weaker.

We later learned that nasty truth from Chris' roommate: Chris had gone quail hunting the weekend before. While out in the tall grass, he bagged a quail, but in a rush to keep walking forward to hunt, he placed the dead quail in his pocket. 

He then subsequently forgot about it being there. For four days. 

It didn't help that when he got home, he tossed his jacket onto the floor of his room, next to the heat register. This gave the decomposing, liquefying stench extra motivation to permeate out and disgust us all.

What did help was that Chris was such a gregarious, likable fellow. Our annoyance at him for this fowl foul wafted away as the scent left our wing. Before long, we were laughing about it.

It was another two days before the girls in the adjoining wing let us open the door to the shared lounge, though. In hindsight, I can't blame them at all.

familiar cross-fades

I vividly recall a college conversation with my friend Rachel. We chatted within the first few weeks of my first semester of college. She was one of the few people I already knew when I started.

"I'm thinking of transferring to another school," I told her.

The first few weeks of college took its toll. The erratic loneliness. The awkward meals alone. I missed my girlfriend back home. I missed my family. I missed my friends.

And I wasn't just missing what used to be.

Adapting to college brought plenty of challenges.

Attempting to adapt to two new roommates with wildly different personalities. Attempting to push my introverted self out there to meet people. Attempting to time my showers in the floor's community bathroom to avoid waiting for an opening. Attempting to comprehend my poly sci professor's impenetrable lectures (spoiler: I dropped poly sci as a minor).

All this attempting brought one solution to my mind: I needed to leave. 

Even though I'd just replanted myself, I wanted to uproot.

My reactive plan did not persuade Rachel, a seasoned college junior. "You just got here," she said breezily. "Slow down; give it some more time."

I didn't like her idea.

Yet transferring seemed like a ton of extra work. So, I stayed.

Within a few month's time, Rachel's advice seemed eminently wise. I acclimated. I made friends. Girlfriend from home and I broke up (so in a rough way, that situation worked itself out). I found people to share meals with.

 I settled in to my new life.

I re-learned an important lesson: my initial impressions often mislead me.

It's like this: sometimes the familiarity (and our memories) of what was can blind our imagination's ability to accurately see what could be.

Don't stay fooled by the cross-fade of what was and what could be.

It took every bit of the "give it some more time" my friend Rachel suggested.

I met people my first few weeks of school that seemed like they could be my friends all through college. 

It didn't work out that way. But I met other people, and found another crowd or two by the next semester that ended up introducing me to lifelong friends. By the end of that first year, I looked forward to coming back the next fall.

My friend Rachel's advice guided me well; it helped me to be skeptical of my skepticism. Hopefully you have someone who helps you to be skeptical of your own skepticism.

I never did try to reacquire poly sci as a minor, though.

mood :: mixtape

 "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." -Proverbs 16:9

 

Moving from one life stage to the next life stage should have clearer boundaries than it does. If I had my way, it'd be like the silence between two songs on a well-crafted mixtape.

But that's not how it usually goes.

Changing of life stages seems more like listening to the radio or Spotify playlist. Songs sort of crossfade together, but the songs rarely share the same key, tempo, or backbeat. So the crossfade sounds clunky, jarring, disjointed.

In my younger years, I'd craft many a mixtape for friends, crushes, acquaintances. If I included a song recorded from the radio, I wanted the entire song without a radio person's voice (a similar annoyance is when the GPS voice talks over your favorite part of a song to inform you of your next turn in two miles).

So for crafting a song running order, that brief space of silence did my mixtapes much good. No voice intrusions, no crossfade.

A tiny bit of silent space to demarcate life stages would also do some good. But that's not usually how it goes.

-Before graduating from high school, most seniors have figured out post-high school plans -- which is a crossfading one life stage with another.

-If you're shopping for new clothes at a store in public, you're required (by law) to shop while wearing clothes you already own. No one shows up to the store in their birthday suit (what else can be said about this?? -- some life crossfades are a net benefit for EVERYONE).

-You never know (at the time) when is the first time you make conversation with a lifelong friend. 

-When graduating college, the crossfade can start so early. What's the next step? Landing a job, graduate school, internship, year or two of volunteering. Something. The ceremony almost feels anticlimactic; a blast of dissonant trumpets amidst the crossfade of the rest of life.

And with each stage, the paths of beloved friends, which for many years have walked side-by-side, now chart different courses ... oh so gradually. It can be a mixture of excitement at what's coming next, and slow-motion heartache at the good that slowly fades out of sight.

There's many ways to look at how life moves from one season to the next. One way is that you're forever fashioning for yourself a mixtape, quite the playlist ... and you're doing so while living your daily, ordinary life.

Sometimes the transitions from one song to the next glide so seamlessly, and you think 'wow, that was smooth ... I am awesome. I've got life figured out.' Sometimes the crossfade between songs sounds raw, messy and abrupt, because that's also life, and you're going through it.

Some songs get added to the mixtape by someone else ... because it's a collaborative sorta endeavor, after all. 

Some songs will always break a piece of your heart.

Many songs cycle back though the playlist again, finding new energy in different life stages. 

Some songs only sound good when you hear them alone, driving at night in the summertime. 

Some songs will revive your spirit, again and again.

Many songs will appear once on your playlist, and they stick to that one life stage: a marker forever frozen to a time, a place, a person, an event.

Some songs you'll forget even made it onto the list. 

Many songs you'll never forget, but until you hear them again after a long time, you'll forget how good they really sound.

Some songs endure, and age well with you.

Hmmm ... maybe just maybe, as much as it annoys me at times, crossfades help.

Maybe just maybe -- as much as I'd wish to have all my life mixtape songs tidy, easily labeled and crisply demarcated -- that's just not how it usually plays out.

things fall apart

When I started college, I was trying to make a long-distance relationship work. For me, that meant I was at college only physically, and barely mentally. My energy, focus, and heart remained where I had been, working to maintain what was.

During a public speaking course that first semester, a classmate gave a speech on the shakiness of long-distance dating.  I still remember her words: "Presents aren't promises, and kisses aren't contracts." At the time, I brushed this off as pessimism. The presents in MY room told a different story, I assured myself. The letters I received, and mailed back home only strengthened this resolve.

It'll be no surprise to share that my long-distance relationship didn't pan out -- didn't even last the entire first semester. It devastated me the Tuesday night we broke up. I wondered why this had to happen, asked God WHY ME. I was heartbroken, angry, confused, strung out.

I called my parents. I called my friends. I took a long walk. I cried myself to sleep. Focusing on schoolwork took so so so much more effort.

Fear of the unknown can slyly motivate us to hedge our bets. I'd never before experienced such a life change as transitioning to college. I felt apprehensive about making new friends, joining clubs, or embracing the unknown. It seemed like everyone was adjusting way easier than me.

So rather than make new friends or try new experiences, I spent nights alone in my room, counting down the hours and days until I could return home to see her. I hunkered away, and hustled to keep up with had been more familiar. My new life kinda scared me.

For me, coming to college while dating someone from home was *a way* to deal with the angst unknown of starting college (it's of course not that way for everyone, but it certainly was for me ... and maybe for some of you too). 

[For the record, one of my best friends did marry his high school sweetheart -- but their journey followed no linear path. They dated in high school, broke up before college, went to different schools, lost contact with each other, then randomly reconnected at the tail end of college, and got married later. They didn't plan it out, but it is what happened, and they remain happily married]

Sometimes, when God suggests or compels us to let go of cherished parts of our life, it's to make room for what's to come. Baby teeth must first fall out of the mouth before adult teeth take their place. It can feel wrenching to have to let go, and even more agonizing when the letting go isn't what we'd choose -- or how we'd choose it.

In the short run, it was a long, awful night to endure when it it fell apart.

And yet. 

It pushed me forward and forced me to connect in the present place where I was living, and not where I didn't live anymore. The best parts of that year at school for me all came after that relationship ended. In the long run (and even in the short run), it turned out more than fine.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -J. Elliot