You Can't Go Back!

A strange thing happened on the way to becoming an adult, I found out that you can’t go back to the way things were in the past.

After high school, I immediately entered the military.  On my first leave back home, I stopped by the school and visited some of my favorite teachers.  They were kind and glad to see me, but the feeling wasn’t the same.  In fact, home wasn’t the same.  Mom and dad and several of the siblings were still there, but something had changed.   I did.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but ultimately the reality that I couldn’t go back was beginning to settle in.  Life had changed me, God had changed me, and experience had changed me.  I desired life to stay the same, but it wasn’t and couldn’t be.  You see, everyone else was changing too!  Soon the time I had with individuals from the past became times of reminiscing.  A shared past was all we had because somewhere along the road of life we forgot, or didn’t take time to stay current with each other.  We lost touch and lost each other. 

Life takes over, with its daily cares.  Everything that can get in the way and consume our time will get in the way and consume our time, home, children, jobs, travel, etc.  One of the lessons I learned after my dad passed away, now more than 14 years ago, is that death pulls individuals together for a short time and life pulls us apart.  It should be the other way around, life pulling us together and death separating us, but it isn’t.  It didn’t take long for each of the six brothers and sisters in my family to lose touch on a regular basis once “life” settled back in again.  Lesson: Staying in touch and having a meaningful relationship takes time and effort.  In other words work.  I didn’t take the time or make the effort and today I wouldn’t use the word intimate to classify my relationships with my brothers and sisters to the loss of us all.

Lesson two: When individuals say, “We should get together more often” don’t let them leave the room without setting up the time and date, or it just won’t happen. Again, life will get in the way and intentions, as well intended as they may be, will not carry the day. 

Lesson three: Emotions will not see you through.  I have seen many individuals under very emotional circumstances make promises they can’t possibly keep.  Promises at reunions, funerals, family gatherings, whether the emotions are from joy or grief, they won’t be enough to sustain the promise.  Emotions come and go and soon after the emotional peak, reason and rationale kick in.  It is at this point that only commitment will see those promises to fruition and commitment is something sorely lacking in our society today.

So what can we take away from this?  Relationships take work.  They typically don’t just happen.  Friends, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, anyone at any time could be gone.  Tomorrow is not guaranteed to us.  Don’t let the time slip away; people are far more important than that.

I would write more, but I think I should call one of my siblings now.