Epiphany

I was driving home tonight, and everything was incredibly beautiful. There were grey thunderheads breaking up the blue of the sky so that the fields and mountains were alternately the bright green of spring and deep green of summer in the resulting patches of sun and shadow. It was so grand and stunning and I don't know why, but that picture postcard of why I love it here made me think about what "here" lacks. And that in turn made me realize why I felt so off, and, just a little bit, lonely after last weekend's wedding. And it had nothing to do with feeling judged, or feeling inadequate, or missing anyone in particular.

So here is the epiphany, and it's a pretty basic one really: What I miss, and what I got a taste of last weekend, is simply being around people I know, who know me. I don't particularly like new people, I don't like new friends. I love being around people with whom I share a past, any kind of past, and I don't have that any more. I've given that up to be closer to my family, to live in the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I'm socializing, I'm meeting people, but I can't picture what they were like 4 or 8 or 16 years ago. They have no history. I see them as they are now. Their image is crisp and unblurred by my memories of them as they used to be. They don't know that I once inappropriately reminded someone of his ex-wife, and I don't know what any of their old crushes look like. I've never seen them nearly comatose with overwork or commiserated when they got a bad grade or review. They don't know or care that I used to be near the top of my class, that there was a brief moment in time I could actually keep up with the drinkiest of them in alcohol consumption, that I once simultaneously dated two horrifically nerdy men on law review. We don't know the same stories about the same people. We haven't choked with laughter and powdered sugar, spent hours and hours together in dark theaters or too-bright libraries, eaten hungover brunches with our sunglasses on. And chances are, we never will. Because I don't particularly like new people, which makes creating new old friends difficult.

I miss an assortment of individuals very much. Some of them read this blog. But I'm not afraid of never seeing them again. I know I will. One at a time, or in small groups. Certainly it won't be as often as I'd like, but I can get on a plane and make it happen. So what nearly broke me. What made it impossible for me to just close my eyes and go to sleep after the wedding reception was over. What made me call and text old friends in the middle of the night begging them to keep me company: this wedding was probably the last chance I'll have, for a very long time, to be with a critical mass of very familiar people. I gave that up when I moved to the middle of Idaho. And I miss that more than I miss any one of my friends.