We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects. ― Herman Melville
Since we have been back in the USA, we have noticed something about the people in our experience both abroad and at home:
- There are people with whom the connection is immediate and fulfilling and we never see again.
- There are people whose paths we cross a thousand times and there is no apparent connection.
- There are people we have to start over with each time we see them and there are people with whom it feels like not a moment has passed between visits.
- There are people we have never met who inspire us, and there are people we know but rarely see who are with us wherever we go.
- There are people who fill our experience with ease, and people who fill our experience with contrast.
- There are people who show us what we don’t want, and people who reveal our greatest desires.
All people are purposeful in our experience. We believe that we are all connected so we give ourselves permission to simply observe our connectedness to others as an indicator of how grounded we feel at any given time.
When a relationship has run its course, it doesn’t have to be a dramatic parting or an ending, even in death, because people and their lessons take on life within us. We don’t have to break up or cut off or even bury the lessons of another life to give ourselves permission to move in a different direction. We need to do the opposite. We need to honor their presence in a real way because we opened ourselves up to their experience.
The flow of people changes as we move through different stages of our lives. The presence of all people in our experience are gifts that we take with us. Only then can we watch the next chapter unfold.
After leaving and returning and preparing to leave again, the permanence of the connection to others feels alive within us in a new way. We are making our way to Oceania – All aboard!
