Many of us will have only a small circle of close family members and friends, with many of the people we associate regularly with falling into casual friends or acquaintences with contact mandated by obligations, common links with other people or school and professional environment. These relationships will morph over time, with some people moving into the inner circle, others moving out of it and some drifting from any connection at all. This can occur gradually or suddenly, and can be a conscious separating or distancing by one or both parties or a natural consequence of another choice or situation.
Periods of stress, particularly extended ones, put life under a microscope forcing a reassessment of priorities and acknowledgement of which of our needs are being met. Some feel bound by duty, some by choice, and all require an energy and time commitment. Relationships of convenience such as classmates, colleagues, fellow-activity-attenders where the only effort to be in communication with people is to turn up to the same event are dependent only on turning up to something we are doing anyway. They generally provide a (hopefully) healthy dose of social interaction with very little depth or pressure, and if you’re lucky or want it there may be deeper friendships with a few.
These ‘shallow’ interactions can still provide a degree of stability in their regularity and predictability; particularly if daily such as at school or work. They force a degree of community and mutual respect if you’re lucky enough to feel part of a team. I have however noticed the natural ability for the ‘team’ to move on when a member is suddenly absent perhaps through illness, retirement, pa/maternity leave or moving onto a new job. When there is a notice period to their leaving, it is easy to notice how much they do and wonder how on earth you’ll cope without them. This lasts until they leave. Within a day or two the team have formed a new dynamic and the leaver is mentioned only in passing; ‘so-and-so would know that’, ‘they used to do that’, ‘do you remember when…?’. The natural course of living has made us able to move on from absences of those not personally connected to us without any real degree of mourning – as is very important in the animal kingdom.
Less obvious, to me at least, was the experience from the other side. Entering a new phase of life without the structure of a system one has lived within for years is very much like passing through a gateway, and the deeper relationships are often the only ones you can take with you: those that can survive without the system and both parties are willing to make an active effort in rather than those that exist in passive affiability. This comes with the realisation that while one is valued as a team member or as a person, this does not mean you are valued enough to take a place in personal lives. It is easy to enquire how someone is doing to a mutual acquaintance seen in passing, and is a good conversation starter, but it takes more effort to reach out and find out yourself.
Continue reading The Mourning After
A Life of Well 