Remember that game when we were kids? I'll tell you something...and you'll tell a slew of others and at the end of a long line of people, someone repeats what was said so maybe we can compare the original message?
That was kind of fun back in the day, but not so much now when I'm really far away from home and can't even see people to do anything about it. What's worse, it evidently was festering so long that I couldn't possibly know what I originally said that was so bad, I didn't even get talked to about it.
So this leads me to wonder about how people have long distance relationships. There's so much military, particularly in the last 15 years or so, who have had to go overseas. I know the divorce rate is really high for these people, so I know that it puts a major strain on marriages. I wonder, though, about relationships of somewhat less significance. What about relationships with siblings. Extended family? Friends? Do these go on hold? Do they come back and then just get started right where they left off? Or are things changed forever?
I think the answers to these questions lie in understanding how a time away changes the one who leaves, and how, in their absence life has changed the one's left behind.
Before I left, I had some fears that I'd come back and I wouldn't have the same relationships, and I think it's likely that that will come to be a reality. People change, or maybe they let down their guard and be who they always really were, but hid because they had to see you again. Life throws in great things and horrible things, and sometimes just a whole lot of nothing, and even that can change people some times.
On a world view level, I know I'm different. Even if you try hard, I don't think it's possible to have much of a world view unless you go out into it. Having been out once on my own for a pretty short time, I realize I really know nothing about the world except what my narrow American prospective gives me. Don't get me wrong...I am still fiercely patriotic. I love my country even though I don't agree with all its politics. I do not love, however, how everyone in America tells me how Arabs are. They are not all out to kill Americans, or rape any woman not waling around with a man. They are not animals. I can't understand how so many people will accept gays and other alternative lifestyles, but these people can not be. I thought we were better than this?
On a personal interactions level, I have seen what family and friend devotion can look like here, and from the few people back home I talk to so frequently. I've also experienced some disappointments in relationships which have let me down, and people not turning out to be who I thought they were. In some cases, they became who I feared they were, but didn't want to admit. For sure, this has been a growing experience because based on the whole of everything, I find myself making new rules and expectations for myself, as well as setting different expectations on what I will accept and what I will not. Maybe I can become a better person, and possible make my own world a better place.
Sometimes, I hear something that bothers me, but I'm too busy to think about it and it gets discarded. I've moved onto other things, but my subconscious takes it and runs with it. It's like a second person, and when she's come to a conclusion, out of the blue, in the middle of some boring homework assignment she'll say, "Hey, by the way, I have x bad news for you. I realized something." Then what I've realized is not something I want to hear, but now maybe I need to change something about my world views. This subconscious thing is a major buzz-kill but there's always an upside. In this case, maybe I can grow into a better person.
That was kind of fun back in the day, but not so much now when I'm really far away from home and can't even see people to do anything about it. What's worse, it evidently was festering so long that I couldn't possibly know what I originally said that was so bad, I didn't even get talked to about it.
So this leads me to wonder about how people have long distance relationships. There's so much military, particularly in the last 15 years or so, who have had to go overseas. I know the divorce rate is really high for these people, so I know that it puts a major strain on marriages. I wonder, though, about relationships of somewhat less significance. What about relationships with siblings. Extended family? Friends? Do these go on hold? Do they come back and then just get started right where they left off? Or are things changed forever?
I think the answers to these questions lie in understanding how a time away changes the one who leaves, and how, in their absence life has changed the one's left behind.
Before I left, I had some fears that I'd come back and I wouldn't have the same relationships, and I think it's likely that that will come to be a reality. People change, or maybe they let down their guard and be who they always really were, but hid because they had to see you again. Life throws in great things and horrible things, and sometimes just a whole lot of nothing, and even that can change people some times.
On a world view level, I know I'm different. Even if you try hard, I don't think it's possible to have much of a world view unless you go out into it. Having been out once on my own for a pretty short time, I realize I really know nothing about the world except what my narrow American prospective gives me. Don't get me wrong...I am still fiercely patriotic. I love my country even though I don't agree with all its politics. I do not love, however, how everyone in America tells me how Arabs are. They are not all out to kill Americans, or rape any woman not waling around with a man. They are not animals. I can't understand how so many people will accept gays and other alternative lifestyles, but these people can not be. I thought we were better than this?
On a personal interactions level, I have seen what family and friend devotion can look like here, and from the few people back home I talk to so frequently. I've also experienced some disappointments in relationships which have let me down, and people not turning out to be who I thought they were. In some cases, they became who I feared they were, but didn't want to admit. For sure, this has been a growing experience because based on the whole of everything, I find myself making new rules and expectations for myself, as well as setting different expectations on what I will accept and what I will not. Maybe I can become a better person, and possible make my own world a better place.
Sometimes, I hear something that bothers me, but I'm too busy to think about it and it gets discarded. I've moved onto other things, but my subconscious takes it and runs with it. It's like a second person, and when she's come to a conclusion, out of the blue, in the middle of some boring homework assignment she'll say, "Hey, by the way, I have x bad news for you. I realized something." Then what I've realized is not something I want to hear, but now maybe I need to change something about my world views. This subconscious thing is a major buzz-kill but there's always an upside. In this case, maybe I can grow into a better person.
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