All life ebbs and flows. There are special times and mundane times. Things get exciting and then they get boring. There are moments of great hope and then come the depths of depression. Such is life. Even if we are people that enjoy the roller coaster ride with all its ups and downs, it would be hard for anyone to admit that it isn’t a bummer when you come off a high and have to spend time back at ground level or below. This is where several things come in handy. To begin with, external variables like weather can certainly help. I’m sure its part of the social psychology of moving to warmer climes as we age. As we become less resilient, we need more external crutches to lean on and weather is always a good place to start. A sunny morning or warm breeze can wash away many worries and restore a peace of mind that keeps us out of the depths. Pleasant and bucolic surroundings have a similar affect on us. When we see the indomitable strength of nature around us, we are reminded that others before us have persevered and carried on despite their moments of distress. In many ways, retirement is about seeing the stage for maximum optimism because our natural resilience is less reliable and needs more assistance to get us through the day with some semblance of productivity.
No mater who’s counsel you take on the subject of happiness, it always boils down to a matter of relationships. If you are in a strong marriage or partnership you have the base layer. A solid family structure is valuable in creating a cocoon within which we all find comfort at times. We then move in concentric circles of trust like Robert De Niro explained to us in Meet The Parents. There are close personal friends, there are neighbors, there are friendship groups from our past and there are acquaintances. These webs intersect with our lives in multiple ways, but it is up to us to activate them, maintain them, nurture them and even sometimes salvage them. Without personal effort, relationships fall away in some form of network entropy. The key in life as you get too old to start over or want to be able to relive your finest moments is to put in the required effort to both maintain your most valuable relationships, but also nurture and develop new ones to add to your collection.
We have just had two weeks that highlight the importance of this approach to life to us. We have had a visit from Deb & Melisa (they just left to go back to Salt Lake City this morning) and before that we had a visit from Gary & Oswaldo. Both stayed with us for about five days and in neither case were they visiting for a specific reason. We just used the time to hang out together. It’s what we increasingly do and its what we increasingly enjoy doing. We go on walks and go our to dinner or whatnot, but as Kim said this morning when Melisa apologized for being “boring” guests, the good stuff to us these days is sitting around catching up with each others’ lives and just talking about everyday stuff that makes us feel closer to one another. We do not need to go sky diving or walk through a fancy art exhibit to feel closer to our best friends. All we need to do is stay connected to each others’ lives. We also included both couples respectively in local neighborhood gatherings and integrated them with our local friends, who we haven’t known as long, but who we see more on a daily basis. Again, this was nothing fancy, but we had a small birthday gathering (my birthday) when Gary & Oswaldo were here, and with Deb & Melisa we had both a Super Bowl gathering and, last night, a game night where eight of us sat around and played cards for a few laughs. These are the good times for us. There are the events that make us feel closer and strengthen the relationships.
We do likewise with family whenever and however we can. We are quite dogged about darting together with the kids. My preference would be to get everyone together twice a year, but I fear that this year we will be limited to our annual Christmas gathering in New York since the summer is difficult for several of the crew. We had Tom here over Christmas, I will go to Delaware to see Roger & Valene in early June. And then we will have Carolyn and the gang here once again for July. That program is heading into its fourth year and it is a mainstay of our year. I only with the other kids could join then, but everyone has their own schedules to maintain. As for Kim’s family and my extended family, we do a fairly good job of prompting get-togethers that certainly happen around holidays, but also try to expand on that to include other opportunities to convene. We are the party central for both sides of the family and luckily both Kim and I take pleasure in hosting whenever we can. I believe that makes the family gathering process work much more effectively and benefits all beyond just our desire to stay strongly connected. It’s sad when we see certain family members drift into their smaller and smaller circles and become less well connected. I know that is inevitable for some, but I still believe that it would be better for them and for all to try harder to stay engaged and make the effort that sometimes feels too burdensome or inconvenient. You learn in life too late that social burden and inconvenience are minor issues in the face of the bleakness of disconnectivity. What may feel easier or more comfortable in the moment is likely to lead to a much darker place from which escape gets harder and harder. It is never a good tradeoff to be cavalier or uncaring about the importance of relationships, whether with family or friends.
Now that Deb & Melisa are gone, the next thing on my agenda is a short three-day ride out into Death Valley with two local riding pals and one old motorcycle buddy from Phoenix. Then, next on our dance card is a trip to Florida for five days in early March. We are doing that to visit with all our friends who now live at least half the year in the Sunshine State. Most of them are old motorcycle group pals and that reminds me that the reason we are all still connected as well as we are is that for over 25 years, I made a big white to keep our club going with several rides and gatherings every year. I am still riding with some of them though less and less, but less because of reduced riding, not less because of laziness about gathering. This trip to Florida is case in point. We’re making the effort to see them as part of our organic friendship process. After Florida, the next trip is also a motorcycle trip, this time to Ecuador for about ten days of proving to the world that the importance of relationships and staying active supercede the concerns and risks of geopolitical events like cartel violence and mayhem.
The slowing down I am feeling from having our friends leave is what makes me think I’m coming back to reality of everyday life, but the truth is that the only reason we are on this earth is to commune with one another and build relationships, so maybe I have to reorient my sense of reality. Maybe, like they say about life being what happens while you are living it, reality is what you experience when you are out in the world making relationships happen day in and day out.