Are You Welcome In My Castle?

Some of you assume you are welcome in my castle and a few of you probably think I’d let you live there, but you might be surprised to know what I really think.

Thing is most people don’t really care and only a few will or would make the time to find out and or ask questions.

I understand and make no claim to be better.

I only share my thoughts knowing there aren’t many who I could spend significant amount of time with anyway.

A thousand years ago in my camp and Jewish youth group days I learned how quickly deep friendships can be formed and how sometimes living with people you don’t like really ensures a lasting distaste for them.

Again, I expect some say the same about me, it is ok. It is not a value judgment, it is life.

Some people you connect and click with and some you do not.

Thought about this a bit cuz of a recent conversation with someone.

The Conversations We Would Have

That Jane Austen quote reminds me of those moments from camp and youth group experiences where you would realize that someone you had recently met felt like a life long friend.

Sometimes I miss those days and the unexpected moment where you would go looking for that person you had connected with because you were both interested in deepening the bond and learning the stories about the other that would cement that relationship.

Decades later I still speak to many though some have fallen by the wayside.

Sometimes it is because we have grown and changed so much the connections that kept us tight no longer work and sometimes it is just life.

You get busy living and doing things that prevent regular contact but the moment you get time you pick right back up where you left off.

Sometimes my kids will see me and those people and ask how a stranger could know me so well.

I smile and tell them that stranger and I used to date best friends, or that we traveled throughout the states and parts of the world together.

Or I tell them about one of a thousand other experiences we shared and watch as the kids try to process that I really was a teenager…once.

Every now and then my daughter will ask if the old lady I am talking to and I dated. Sometimes I just smile and watch her say ‘eww’ and laugh because there never was any romance between me and whomever they are referring to.

And sometimes she finds one where maybe there might have been and she says ‘eww’ and I still laugh.

I understand it, there is a disconnect between acknowledging our parents were once single and had lives of their own.

They don’t see us as we once were and that is ok.

When I Grow Up

I put about 180 miles in today but most of it was unplanned. It was just how things worked out.

Thought about how very different some things are than they once were and how I once thought they might be when I grew up.

A decade and some change ago I flew into Dallas for a work trip and drove out to Sherman. At the time it was just a name of a place to me and part of an adventure.

I ended up back there today for the first time since that adventure and thought about how very different life is.

Laughed as I remembered how I returned my rental and Hertz managed to lock my luggage in the car. I worried about missing my flight and the guy said maybe I ought to consider moving here.

And now, here I am…again.

A different man in many ways than I once was, but more focused than ever upon the validity of the quote. I will not allow myself to be who I am not.

That is why the question/comment about gets to live in my castle is pertinent and why I am focused upon certain things.

Some get it and some don’t.

I keep explaining to others that listening to me is a superior way of ensuring understanding than thinking that having known me for a length of time provides understanding.

It is like those who spent a summer living with me with in Ojai, Jerusalem or Toronto mistaking that what they learned there provided a full overview of who I am and what I like or dislike. It was just a snapshot, there is a little more there.