Jun. 11th, 2012 02:33 pm
Looking for a silver lining [old friends]
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mizarchivistExposition-
I didn't come to being very active with the regional UU group until I was independently mobile, say 17-18, or there abouts. But then I adored them, ended up going to Ohio University and it had a huge UU group, some I knew already. Like so many who graduate and move away, I did not stay active with the old UU friends or UU-ness in general. had always defaulted to more social rather than spiritual interactions with church, and when I moved to Boston had the UUs to get me through the first lonely year, but I inevitably found a differently focused social group.
Fast-forward to last night-
I see in Facebook that a friend who is now in Boston but someone I knew from my earliest UU days had posted a picture. He'd lit a candle for another of our YRUU compatriots, A-, someone I'd not been particularly close to and had not really thought much about for the better part of 15 years. This guy's been in the hospital with a failed liver for a few weeks and there's been a ton of chatter on the YRUU group page, but thanks to my filtering and lack of attention, I never a whisper about it until last night, and now I'm catching up with my concern and just looking back. I have no idea if he'll pull out of this. He's my age, though, and really- livers should last longer than that.
Some observations-
It's been so long since I really-really thought about my old friends and my old life, I started to doubt a bit that it was that much of a thing. But, no. They were very important to me. I'd say 80% of my friends in college were associated with the UUs. Maybe more. I went to weekly meetings, held office within the group, helped organize fundraising and events- all of it. Some people had Greek life, I had the Unitarians. My tribe. How could I lose track of something so central to my life? Why did I forget it? (she asks rhetorically, then answers pedantically)- Because life is like that. Filled with overlapping things, hopefully mostly good things. And as Robin pointed out at lunch, we can as humans only keep track of about 150 people at a time with great feeling. This feels true. Even if we had the miracles of all the current social media, not just college email accounts and the most rudimentary internet- I still might have slipped through and on. I was filling my life with new: people, place, activities.
This is a horrible situation and I hate that someone who is still in the prime of life is struggling to breathe and make it through the day. It's scary and thinking about it very hard makes me want to hide under my desk or the equivalent thereof. However, if A- had not gotten sick, if his friends hadn't used that YRUU page on Facebook to keep the rest updated, I'd have never known, not thought about them or that time in my life. Now I am and I remember bits and pieces: how they made me feel better after years of being teased in school. They reveled in my weird. They expected weird. So, despite this bad, there is some good coming out of it. Let the universe be kind. Let A- get out of this and has several decades more.
Light a candle, think a thought, say a prayer, play a song, look at pictures, hug the hugs: whatever it is that you do when you are scared for someone and you can't do anything to intervene. And really, this isn't just for A. It's for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ricevermicelli, who has been on my mind so much the last few weeks, and I can't do anything for her, either. And for the others out there, beyond my scope worrying and struggling. Love to you all.
I didn't come to being very active with the regional UU group until I was independently mobile, say 17-18, or there abouts. But then I adored them, ended up going to Ohio University and it had a huge UU group, some I knew already. Like so many who graduate and move away, I did not stay active with the old UU friends or UU-ness in general. had always defaulted to more social rather than spiritual interactions with church, and when I moved to Boston had the UUs to get me through the first lonely year, but I inevitably found a differently focused social group.
Fast-forward to last night-
I see in Facebook that a friend who is now in Boston but someone I knew from my earliest UU days had posted a picture. He'd lit a candle for another of our YRUU compatriots, A-, someone I'd not been particularly close to and had not really thought much about for the better part of 15 years. This guy's been in the hospital with a failed liver for a few weeks and there's been a ton of chatter on the YRUU group page, but thanks to my filtering and lack of attention, I never a whisper about it until last night, and now I'm catching up with my concern and just looking back. I have no idea if he'll pull out of this. He's my age, though, and really- livers should last longer than that.
Some observations-
It's been so long since I really-really thought about my old friends and my old life, I started to doubt a bit that it was that much of a thing. But, no. They were very important to me. I'd say 80% of my friends in college were associated with the UUs. Maybe more. I went to weekly meetings, held office within the group, helped organize fundraising and events- all of it. Some people had Greek life, I had the Unitarians. My tribe. How could I lose track of something so central to my life? Why did I forget it? (she asks rhetorically, then answers pedantically)- Because life is like that. Filled with overlapping things, hopefully mostly good things. And as Robin pointed out at lunch, we can as humans only keep track of about 150 people at a time with great feeling. This feels true. Even if we had the miracles of all the current social media, not just college email accounts and the most rudimentary internet- I still might have slipped through and on. I was filling my life with new: people, place, activities.
This is a horrible situation and I hate that someone who is still in the prime of life is struggling to breathe and make it through the day. It's scary and thinking about it very hard makes me want to hide under my desk or the equivalent thereof. However, if A- had not gotten sick, if his friends hadn't used that YRUU page on Facebook to keep the rest updated, I'd have never known, not thought about them or that time in my life. Now I am and I remember bits and pieces: how they made me feel better after years of being teased in school. They reveled in my weird. They expected weird. So, despite this bad, there is some good coming out of it. Let the universe be kind. Let A- get out of this and has several decades more.
Light a candle, think a thought, say a prayer, play a song, look at pictures, hug the hugs: whatever it is that you do when you are scared for someone and you can't do anything to intervene. And really, this isn't just for A. It's for
ricevermicelli, who has been on my mind so much the last few weeks, and I can't do anything for her, either. And for the others out there, beyond my scope worrying and struggling. Love to you all. 
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*hugs* and best wishes for your friend. I wonder if it's someone I know, though I don't think our circles overlapped all that much.
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Love to you too. Both now and in the hazy future when our lives might have taken us far away from current intersections. ;-)
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