Diverging Lines

Throughout our lives we connect with different people, build relationships and develop friendships. How that happens is closely tied to the stage of life we are in, and we are not always equally selective. As we grow older we tend, perhaps, to be more selective and to have more control over who we spend time with, but that doesn’t mean that friendships from childhood (or from a time when we had little say in choosing our friends) are any weaker, or that we feel less connected to those people.

In fact, it is usually the opposite. We shared our most real self, the one closest to who we truly are, with those who shared our lives as children. And even though in adulthood we have less contact and our paths drift apart, there is always an attachment and a deeper understanding of the other, sweetened (or soured) by nostalgia.

This also means that the people with whom we feel a special connection can be radically different from us, with completely opposite and opposing views on the world, politics and personal relationships. In short, a complete alien, someone we would despise and loathe if we hadn’t lived that part of our lives together. A lunch or dinner with old friends from school or from the neighborhood is the best way to trade opposing points of view that would normally cause a lot of friction, and still have everyone go home with a smile and the feeling that we should do it more often.

Does that mean judgment is lost and that we value the person rather than the argument? Not at all. The debate is still there; it’s just that something deeper binds us together and keeps the ties from breaking. It is also enriching to see how life has taken each of us down different paths, and a reminder that we must keep an open mind.

Don’t let the cord that ties you to your origins break. Remember that in those years we knew each other and lived without masks, and that everything we now believe defines us is nothing more than makeup.