The Last One

Earlier this year I was thinking about a friend of mine several years back. This friend meant a great deal to me at the time that I knew her, and it made me sad to think that we were no longer really a part of each other's life. In a moment of sort-of-melancholy reflection, I found myself wondering what the purpose of our brief period of friendship had served if we had both moved on so thoroughly. It bothered me a little that something that felt so significant at the time could feel as though it had so little impact on my life right now. It bothered me that at least some of the relationships that are important to me now are likely consigned to the same fate.

But as I continued thinking about this particular friendship, it struck me that no matter how small our role in each other's lives may be in the present, that did not diminish the significance of the moment when we did know each other. It meant something at the time. That was all that mattered, and all that needed to matter.

This past year, as with any year, I have watched many relationships with friends and family change and evolve and ebb and flow, and sometimes just stay constant. I have met new people, and I have become closer to people I already knew. Lifelong friendships can't always be recognized at first sight, and at the end of the year I find that there are people who are more important to me now than I might have expected at the beginning of the year. It makes me wonder what potential for friendship might exist in other people around me.

I have also had friendships take on new roles as I experience them at a distance. In some cases they simply fade into happy memory, and in others the distance has allowed me to see the strength of the friendship. It makes me wonder what the friendships I have now will look like to me one, five, twenty years down the road.

Situations change and people change and the nature of relationships changes. There will be people I will meet only once, and people who will be in my life for a short season, and people who will be there in some capacity or other for most of my life. In the moment, I can't always know whether a person will be in my life for just that moment, or for a season, or for a lifetime, but that does not diminish the impact of the moment itself. In fact, the most meaningful moments will be with me for a lifetime, whether or not the person is.

So right now, for my last look back at 2009, I want to step back and just remember the moments themselves, to take them for what they were at the time, and appreciate them for just that.

This is not a top ten list. It's just a list. There's no particular order, and it's not comprehensive.

Favorite Shared Moments: 2009

Sewing pillows * Visiting Littleton and Downers Grove
Creating the Lost cake * A phone call with my brother Sean
A visit to my brother Eric's house in Salt Lake * A birthday concert
A late-night talk with my dad * The Magnolia Cafe
Zingerman's, Frankenmuth, and eggnog pie * Semi-trucks
A walk around the lake * Pembroke and Derrynane
Swedish meatballs at IKEA * Grand Rapids
I Know Where I'm Going * An after-visiting-teaching visit
The Ann Arbor Street Art Fair * Carpooling to church
Making curtains * Jin coming through in an hour of need
Breakfast at The Broken Egg * The Noodles Table of Trust

Writing this entry made me feel more happy and at peace with 2009 than any of my other countdown posts, and it seemed an appropriate one to end on. 2009 was a good year.