Road Trip

Despite overcast skies, my friend C. and I took off toward West Point early Saturday morning just as we'd planned.  It was time for our annual trip to Prairie Arts.  It sprinkled a little on the way, but the storms that had been hanging around in Isaac's wake held off.

When we got to West Point, we went to the Pizza Inn, our traditional lunch stop during the trip.  I don't know what they do to their pizza, but it's some of the best restaurant pizza I know of.  As we ate, we talked.  For the second time in as many weeks, just how much of my friends' lives I am unaware of was brought home to me.  I've had two conversations with two people I dearly love and rarely see, and I've learned things that I would have loved to have been able to help them with.

And maybe, truly, they weren't the kind of things somebody could have helped with, ultimately, but I hate the thought that people I love were going through challenging times, and I could not give some kind of aid, even if it was just a listening ear or a silly distraction.  We are all so far away from each other:  in geography, in life stage, in so many ways.  However, just knowing they went through these things, even though some of them were years ago and far away, made me feel like a bad friend.

That's another conversation that has been much on the lips of those I'm around lately, the disconnectedness from each other we feel, the fact that we only know about each other's lives from FaceBook updates.  Everyone has expressed a desire to "do better," to see each other more, to have conversations, not just "like" statuses.  Are we finally at a point now where we will be able to do what we say?

I get so lost inside my job.  I have friends who are also teachers, who live a million miles away, who are trying to meet the demands of college life or young children.  Can we find a way to get over all the hurdles and be closer?  Is it unrealistic even to want that?  Or is it ultimately a matter of priorities and effort?

I am hopeful that it is the latter.  My friends genuinely matter to me.  I think it's time they started being more of a list item than an afterthought.

The best part of the trip yesterday was the talking.  We saw fantastic things at Prairie Arts, ate at Dooey's in Starkville, enjoyed a good bookstore and coffee, but the most important part was that sense of reconnection.  I want to find a way to make it last.  I don't know how to go about it,  but it's time to try something.