Jackelopette's Blog

There are different kinds of affection. The Classical age was right.
Friendship. Camaraderie. Parental. Filial. Fraternal/Sororal, and the other degrees of kinship. Survivor bonding. And there is a difference between love and infatuation, a difference between being in love and loving. There are comfortable loves and secure love, exciting love and new love, the kind of attraction between potential friends and between potential lovers, there is a different and unique kind of love for every possible pairing on the planet. But when does a love or an affection or any kind of attraction age? How does it end when there is no reason for it to end yet it is somehow not enough to continue?

For the most part this is just philosophical rambling, but I’ve been wondering what makes some friendships grow and fade, how you can love someone without liking them, and whether family is determined by genetics or affiliation.
And now, how do I decide which affiliations still fit with the Newest Edition of Me and which are the clinging remnants of the previous version? What connections do I keep and how do I let go of the others without causing undue pain or inexplicable stilted conversations? How are some parts of a relationship kept while others are ended? Social interconnections have always been a source of intellectual challenge, I don’t come by my social skills instinctually. I don’t forge new connections easily. Not at all. So after investing what for me is a lot of effort, how do I let it go? I’m such a packrat, from old books to old clothes, old flyers and old ideas. Sometimes I feel like I’ve changed in nature while still being the old me in practice. Like I’ve been going along with everything I used to be and suddenly I’ve woken up to realize that almost a year has gone by and I am fundamentally different in some way that I can’t identify. I’ve been playing the original version of my own metaphorical Trivial Pursuit to the point where I know all the answers and the board is laid out in my mind. All of a sudden it’s a chronological year but so much further away from where I was, and I find myself playing the deluxe platinum 2003 tournament version with the same basic premise but the pieces, the board, and the questions are all new.

I can deal with external change. It’s the internal change that confounds me.

~ by jackelopette on May 2, 2003.

Posted in Friends, Ramblings, Transitions