Oct
21
2009
The Fabric of Life
My lovely sister-in-law is goodly making a photo album for our parents-in-law (MrSpud’s parents) for Christmas. She’s collecting photos from the weddings of all three of their children, so kind of her. I’m so glad I’m not in charge since I’ve failed to put even our own wedding photos in an album, even though we got married nearly 5 years ago. Ooops. Must have slipped off that damn To Do list…
So I’ve been going through our wedding photos over the last few days, picking out the few that don’t make MrSpud look monstrously fat (he overate out of stress and then refused to diet to look good for the photos…he regrets it now…frankly, we all do). But once I’d stopped weeping at his royal bloatyness, I was struck by how many of the people at our wedding are no longer part of our lives. Two have died, at least 3 couples have split up and a surprising large number of people have quietly just slid out of our lives for various reasons. Mostly, geography has got in the way, some just sneaked off without us noticing, some were actively ’sacked’ for cruel and unusual selfishness. GOOD RIDDANCE.
Surely wedding photos must be the most accurate ’snapshot’ of what I call the ‘fabric’ of your life that you ever get? The one big occasion when you invite everyone who is important to you to be with you, and then you photograph them. So it’s interesting that, for us, only 5 years later that ’snapshot’ is so wildly out of date. If we were to get married right now the snapshot would be so very different. And MrSpud would be a whole lot slimmer (thank the Lord), but I’d be fatter (boo hiss). But we’d invite a completely different crowd.
Isn’t it interesting how the sands of your life shift like that…slowly, oh so slowly and without you really clocking it? These people who are the very fabric of your life, who support you, laugh with you, love you, cry with you…they move in, move on and move out. We all do it…mostly without meaning to…in and out we go. Mostly it’s a very subtle shift, with only the occasional dramatic exit.
I’d love to be able to map it, and track it. These little shifts and changes that alter the path and pattern of your life. I notice it most often at Christmas, when I come to write our cards. And realise another year has passed without seeing xyz, and pondering when you make the cut and take them off the list. And then you add the new, shiny people in.
In and out they go…some constant, some new, some old, some are forever….whoever they are, however long they stick around, they are part of the complex web of relationships and connections that underpin our lives and weave the history of our lives. What a quilt they would make…I read an article somewhere recently about someone who takes a polaroid photo of every person who comes in to her home, and then displays the photos in her hall. That’s a wonderful, evolving representation of what I’m wiffling on about. But what I want is a map of the subtle changes and shifts….too much to ask? So that when I look back at my life and try to make sense of it, I can see all the people who made it what it is…even if I have to wonder where the hell some of them went?
I love this photo, Spud!
It’s so true about the people that slip in and out of our lives. Often we don’t even realize some of them have gone. Time passes and then suddenly they’ve gone off our radar. I have several friends I thought I’d be close with forever and then job changes or children or marriages interrupted what was there. So sad. But then I have to remember I have just as many new friends… that makes me smile.
I look at my Brothers wedding pics from 19 years ago and I don’t even recognize half of us.
The older I get, the faster things change…buckle your seat belt Spud, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
p.s.: what is this picture of?
this makes me want to make a few phone calls to people who have slid out of my life.
It’s so true that friends come and go. Even in the 3 years since our life changed dramatically with babies, the (NCT) friends that I had EVERYTHING in common with, now I have very little in common with. I chose to work whereas they all chose to stay home. Funny really, as I thought we’d always have a common ground with having babies born within weeks of each other. But those babies have grown up to be such wildly different and individual children that finding a common ground is increasingly difficult.
Nice post, really got me thinking…
yes, I think about that too, people come and go and the older we get the more inense the process becomes… but I must say some of those people I don’t miss. I wouldn’t want them on my map!
oh, and I can’t imagine you ever being even slimmer than you are!
as my parents don’t talk to each other for nearly 30 years we decided to celebrate our wedding only with his family. so our photograph is very small with only my husband’s parents and his sister and everybody is still alive and well. my brother fled to mary in NY and didn’t bother to celebrate with his family and my sister made two different celebrations: one with our mother and one with our father. how complicated life can be!!!!
and yes, what are those gorgeous shine glass beads or ball all about???? they look so amazing!
[...] following up on yesterday’s strange post about quilts of MIA and dead people (you’ll have to read it to get it)…a number of you [...]
Well, you know how appropriate this post is to my life right now, so I’m not going to whitter on about it. Suffice to say, it’s made me cry a little, but not in an entirely bad way. And it’s made me remember the people at my wedding (one of whom I’ve never been as close to since, but that’s a WHOLE other story…)
Hugs to you, J. Because it’s sad to think about the people who’ve passed through. And it’s made me think of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2d2llB4oIQ
looking back at my wedding photos, i realize the most important thing i’ve swapped out is the husband.
heehee.
So true about the way people come and go. If I looked at our wedding photos (and I generally don’t as I’m the one who was monstrously fat – but not as M.F. as I am now!) I’d see a lot of people who have slipped out of my life, and others who I assume haven’t but who I haven’t seen for way too long either.