“The fountains mingle with the river, and the rivers with the ocean.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shelley saw rivers flowing into the ocean. I see it every day on this Chalkboard. Little moments, small conversations, old friends, new faces. They all drift into something bigger. Sometimes that “bigger” is life itself, and sometimes it is just knowing where you have been, who you’ve met, and the pieces of yourself you have left behind along the way.
I have met a lot of people in my life. From my early Chicago years to my teenage days in Indiana. From my Oak Park crew to my colleagues on the floor of the Board of Trade. From the folks I knew living west of Mannheim to my neighbors now in Riverside. I have crossed paths with an army of people... teammates, coworkers, neighbors, classmates, rugby brothers, even total strangers who somehow became stories.
Yesterday I went out to watch rugby, to see some of the guys I met twelve, maybe fifteen years ago. The Blaze sides played out of their minds, two solid victories...
...and on the drive home I started thinking.
I might know a shit ton of people, but here’s the truth: there isn’t one person in this world who considers me their best friend.
I don’t have that buddy who just pops over to drink a beer and watch the game. I don’t have a Ben Affleck to my Matt Damon. I don’t have a Kramer for my Seinfeld. No Barney Rubble to my Fred Flintstone.
What I have is a long list of people who would show up if my life hit the wall. I have support, plenty of it, but not that one constant, the guy who calls without a reason or just knocks on the door because he knows he can.
Some of it is timing.
Some of it is the natural cycles of life.
I have two groups of friends that have been together since kindergarten and I came into those circles down the road, always joining mid-story. I have stayed in touch with friends from my twenties, but then the friendship recession hit. People moved, People got married, started families, chased jobs, drifted off into their own lanes.
Then came my midlife crisis, and right behind it, the collapse of my marriage. I had my newer rugby buddies, but their bonds were built on twenty years of bruises and beers together. I was the new guy. Then Riverside gave me another circle, but those friendships had their own roots. Once again, I was the new guy.
And here is the thing about getting older: the cycles keep coming. One day, I’ll step away from the trading desk and lose the day-to-day camaraderie of colleagues that I have stood beside for decades. Another friendship recession is on the horizon as people start aging out, selling their nests, heading to warmer, tax-friendly states. That shift is coming whether I like it or not.
It’s the Eleanor Rigby problem... the quiet risk of isolation when the circles around you thin, but maybe Shelley had it right all along: the fountains, the rivers, the ocean.
People drift in, stay a while, then drift out, and the current keeps moving whether we fight it or not.
If you are one of the lucky ones who has snagged a best friend, hold onto that. You have something rare...
... and if you haven’t, maybe the trick is to stay open, to keep flowing, to let new tributaries find you.
Today is Waffle Day. It is going to be gorgeous. Sit by a fountain or a river if you can. Hell, if you’re lucky enough, sit by an ocean. As August slides toward its last stretch, go into autumn with a clear agenda.
Make it astonishing.
