How do you know when a friend...a close friend is no longer...your friend?
What does it take to drive that final nail into the fence being built between you?
How long do you wait to finally close the book on a friendship? One that brought you joy at one time, but now is just empty.
I've waited much longer than I should have and the cost is higher than I expected...
It's a sad situation to find yourself in a place where the people you used to call friends don't like who you are anymore. When you realize that - to them- you are just another name in their address book. They think that you retreated, but they fool themselves...
The last nail is deceit...it's when they treat you like a gas station.
You'll buy gas from whoever is selling it for less today. You spend no time agonizing about going to one gas station over the next because it doesn't matter. Gas is gas is gas is...gas. It's all the same and who ever is selling it for less is who you like today. No loyalties with gas stations. If the place that you normally go to is selling it for a cent more than they guy across the street you go across the street and save 15 cents. Hey, 15 cents is...15 cents when there are no loyalties. No fences.
Goodbye old friend. I'm sure I'll see you again...when my price is lower than the guy across the street...or when you are just bored enough to stop in.
By the way, I'll probably be busy...
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
The old man down the street
I grew up in a big neighborhood with lots of houses close together. On the street that we lived we pretty much knew everyone on the street - at least a little. There are lots of streets like this across America and on every one of these streets there is the guy that no one likes.
You know, the guy that whenever you see him he looks like you just woke him from a deep sleep. He yells at the kids and tells them to be quiet and stay away from his house. He's always poking his nose in everyone else's business - he sits on his porch or hangs around in his back yard and he catches everything. He seems to always be looking your direction when you are in a situation that you would rather not anyone see you. He was just the guy that bugged you enough that you don't really like him. He's also the guy that tells your parents - weekly - about all the things you were getting into while they weren't looking (and he was) and you get into trouble.
But...
Every once in a while you stop by and he's in a better mood and you talk about pleasant things. His children or your baseball team, he may give you a wink when he's in a good mood. Just every once in a while...but most of the time he's a pain in the neck. But he's a comfortable pain in the neck. He's part of your life.
One day you find out he died. His death goes quietly and for the most part with a fair bit of relief. Eventually, a young couple with other kids moves into the house he lived in and you make new friends and those friends become a great part of your life and they enrich your life.
However, even though you know you are better off without him and much better off with your new friends, you occasionally miss the old guy. You mourn his passing and on second thought you wonder if through his passing you are missing part of yourself...
He was bad for you, but even so...you miss him...and without him your life will never be quite the same.
You know, the guy that whenever you see him he looks like you just woke him from a deep sleep. He yells at the kids and tells them to be quiet and stay away from his house. He's always poking his nose in everyone else's business - he sits on his porch or hangs around in his back yard and he catches everything. He seems to always be looking your direction when you are in a situation that you would rather not anyone see you. He was just the guy that bugged you enough that you don't really like him. He's also the guy that tells your parents - weekly - about all the things you were getting into while they weren't looking (and he was) and you get into trouble.
But...
Every once in a while you stop by and he's in a better mood and you talk about pleasant things. His children or your baseball team, he may give you a wink when he's in a good mood. Just every once in a while...but most of the time he's a pain in the neck. But he's a comfortable pain in the neck. He's part of your life.
One day you find out he died. His death goes quietly and for the most part with a fair bit of relief. Eventually, a young couple with other kids moves into the house he lived in and you make new friends and those friends become a great part of your life and they enrich your life.
However, even though you know you are better off without him and much better off with your new friends, you occasionally miss the old guy. You mourn his passing and on second thought you wonder if through his passing you are missing part of yourself...
He was bad for you, but even so...you miss him...and without him your life will never be quite the same.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Reinvention III
Reinvention.
The very term suggests that it's a renewal, not something that is "tried and true" or "comfortable". I can only imagine a snake shedding his skin as he grows. The growing is good and the growing means that he is living and thriving, but for a snake, the skin is scaly and stiff - providing him protection from the elements.
As he grows he has to shed that skin so that new, softer skin can emerge and serve him protection as he continues to grow. The new skin is softer, shinier and...well...new. The old skin comes off along with all of the cuts and abrasions that the snake suffered since the last time he shed. The new skin does not look completely different than the old skin once did...neither does it look the same. Same snake...different skin...new stage in life.
I can only imagine that the process of shedding your skin is not comfortable, especially at first when it's just itchy. It must feel really weird to watch this shell that you have been living in and carrying around for some time separate from you and then you just leave it behind - using your new skin. The old one served you well, and the new one will too.
It's the process of growing...improving...living...renewing...reinvention.
The very term suggests that it's a renewal, not something that is "tried and true" or "comfortable". I can only imagine a snake shedding his skin as he grows. The growing is good and the growing means that he is living and thriving, but for a snake, the skin is scaly and stiff - providing him protection from the elements.
As he grows he has to shed that skin so that new, softer skin can emerge and serve him protection as he continues to grow. The new skin is softer, shinier and...well...new. The old skin comes off along with all of the cuts and abrasions that the snake suffered since the last time he shed. The new skin does not look completely different than the old skin once did...neither does it look the same. Same snake...different skin...new stage in life.
I can only imagine that the process of shedding your skin is not comfortable, especially at first when it's just itchy. It must feel really weird to watch this shell that you have been living in and carrying around for some time separate from you and then you just leave it behind - using your new skin. The old one served you well, and the new one will too.
It's the process of growing...improving...living...renewing...reinvention.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
The Librarian of My Brain
Imagine for a moment that my brain has a head librarian. My librarian wouldn't be like other librarians, his name is "Scooter" (why? because it sounds cool). Scooter is a trained librarian, he went to librarian school and graduated in the middle of his class - not the best but not the worst either.
After working filling shelves in other brains, he got his first break a few years later as the head librarian's assistant in another brain where he worked for about 2 years doing fairly well having some successes and trying learn from his mistakes. Finally, he got his break, there was an opening in a new baby's brain for a head librarian's job, he applied for the position and it came down to him and a woman named Xena (another cool name). Anyway, for reasons not clear to anyone he got the job.
Scooter does a great job as my brain's librarian taking all sorts of information that comes into my brain and categorizing it. "Hey, Bryan just learned about Mongolian Fruit Bats, put that in the avarian section next to the piece on Egyptian Fruit Bats..." The next time I need that information about the Mongolian Fruit Bat I find it right where I expect it, with the other "bat" information. His assistants and the "shelvers" like him and he stays out of their hair...for the most part.
However, Scooter has a bit of a quirk. Sometimes he gets confused and distracted while doing his work. He gets some new information and just puts it in the wrong place...info on Robert Oppenheimer (physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project) and he puts it in the area with Astrology (something that I don't think too much about). Another time he takes a new word Mammatus (a cloud formation) and puts that word in with the "J's". Other times he literally takes a word that I know well, like thesaurus and re-shelves it with the "W's".
What happens is I am talking to someone and I am thinking about a thesaurus, but when I get to the word in converstion I look it up in the place that it's supposed to be and IT'S NOT THERE!!!! My mind goes into overdrive, Scooter gets alerted..."where did I put that word?", he get's his assistants searching for it. "It's around here somewhere, I know it is...I may have filed it with the dinoaurs, next to "Stegasaurus"..."
Sometimes they get lucky and find it hiding next to "Watermelon" and other times they just don't find it until later. Usually, once it's found it's re-shelved in it's rightful place, but occasionally Scooter finds it, sends it to me and then just sticks it somewhere else. That's really annoying.
What it sounds like from the outside is..."uh, um, you know...that thing that you use like a dictionary..."
After working filling shelves in other brains, he got his first break a few years later as the head librarian's assistant in another brain where he worked for about 2 years doing fairly well having some successes and trying learn from his mistakes. Finally, he got his break, there was an opening in a new baby's brain for a head librarian's job, he applied for the position and it came down to him and a woman named Xena (another cool name). Anyway, for reasons not clear to anyone he got the job.
Scooter does a great job as my brain's librarian taking all sorts of information that comes into my brain and categorizing it. "Hey, Bryan just learned about Mongolian Fruit Bats, put that in the avarian section next to the piece on Egyptian Fruit Bats..." The next time I need that information about the Mongolian Fruit Bat I find it right where I expect it, with the other "bat" information. His assistants and the "shelvers" like him and he stays out of their hair...for the most part.
However, Scooter has a bit of a quirk. Sometimes he gets confused and distracted while doing his work. He gets some new information and just puts it in the wrong place...info on Robert Oppenheimer (physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project) and he puts it in the area with Astrology (something that I don't think too much about). Another time he takes a new word Mammatus (a cloud formation) and puts that word in with the "J's". Other times he literally takes a word that I know well, like thesaurus and re-shelves it with the "W's".
What happens is I am talking to someone and I am thinking about a thesaurus, but when I get to the word in converstion I look it up in the place that it's supposed to be and IT'S NOT THERE!!!! My mind goes into overdrive, Scooter gets alerted..."where did I put that word?", he get's his assistants searching for it. "It's around here somewhere, I know it is...I may have filed it with the dinoaurs, next to "Stegasaurus"..."
Sometimes they get lucky and find it hiding next to "Watermelon" and other times they just don't find it until later. Usually, once it's found it's re-shelved in it's rightful place, but occasionally Scooter finds it, sends it to me and then just sticks it somewhere else. That's really annoying.
What it sounds like from the outside is..."uh, um, you know...that thing that you use like a dictionary..."
Introducing "Scooter"...the librarian of my brain. He wears a worn out "Foghat" T-Shirt, faded and distressed Levi's jeans and a pair of old white Nike's with a red swoosh that have seen better days. His hair is perpetually (he had to hunt down that word) messy and long, and he lives on Mountain Dew and Taco Bell. He's married and loves his wife dearly.
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