That's Not How I Remember You

Turns out the fellow I ordered my pizza from tonight is a guy I used to be in Cub Scouts with. If he hadn't recognized the name on my credit card, I'm sure we both of us would never have recognized each other. We've both changed a lot in ten or fifteen years.

It was funny, though. In high school, he wasn't someone I was particularly friends with. We'd drifted apart after grade school. But this evening, we were friendly and chatty, catching up on old lives and current situations. Funny how time and distance gloss over lots of things, and instead leave you with "How are you doing, man?" The sincerity was refreshing.

People end up in so many different places. Not just physically, but also situationally. I probably haven't given this guy a moment's thought in 10 years, but it was nice to see him again. It gave me a sense of satisfaction, somehow, to be able to see someone I know almost nothing about. It's...I don't know... reassuring to see that people's lives march forward.

Imagine a sheet of glass. Pick a point on the glass; that point represents a single event, a single choice. When you hit the glass with a hammer, it cracks. It fractures and spiderwebs into a hundred thousand cracks. They move outward, change direction sharply, meet other cracks, break off again, etc. Some lead you away from the center, others seem to but end up right back in the center.

I've always imagined every single choice as having a picture like this. With any choice I make, it leads me down one of the fractures. I have no idea where it may end, where it will proceed on its way there.

There's no direct correlation between that image and my friend, but I always seem to feel the idea of meeting an old acquaintances as somehow related to that mental picture.