Where they are is who you were.

c. David Grim (taken 7/4/08)

Sometimes it's strange to think about how people move in and out of my life. Most of us have "stable" family units to which we'll be connected most of our lives. It doesn't necessarily mean that we we'll live with them, or even see them that often, but we will likely be somehow in contact with them for years. No doubt we'll have some idea what they are up to- where they live, what job they have, and what leisure activities they are enjoying.

After that it's pretty much a crap shoot. Many folks have friends at work, and if they stay at the same place of employment for awhile, their co-workers will form a part of their "consistent" circle/community. Still, we live in an era marked by lateral mobility, and people are perhaps a bit leery about investing too much in their workplace.

We go through stages of our lives, and what we involve ourselves in when we have the choice often dictates the type of people that we will be around, and who we choose as friends. If I go out to the bars a lot, I'm likely to hang out with drinkers. But when I focus on hanging out with my kid, I'm generally going to lose touch with the barflies. It's a shame too, because a sense of continuity offered by interacting with the same friends on a regular basis helps provide clues about who we are. If we change things up drastically, we risk becoming isolated and adrift. There are definitely people that I miss touching base with, and I suspect that there's also a corresponding part of myself that is lying dormant as a result.