Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Friends and Grasshoppers

I find myself quite absorbed by the transition that finishing law school has led me into. Wondering about the next steps and contemplating what this next phase of my life should become takes up a lot of energy.

Part of this process has been reconnecting with old friends in a really positive way. These are people who have known me since high school, and even before. It is empowering having people in my life who have known me in the neighborhood of 30 years, who have seen the various highs and lows, and accept me exactly as I am.

This has caused me to think about friendship and the levels of communication and intimacy we share, and with whom. It is interesting to me that I could communicate the exact same information to a "work friend" who has known me for a few years and one of these friends who has known me my whole life, and the meaning behind that information will be entirely different. For instance, to use one of my friend's examples, she left her dog with her new boyfriend for an afternoon. To a casual friend, that seems like no big deal, to someone that knows her, this was huge. Some story - different message communicated.

Sometimes a message delivered to one person is merely a rubber ball, thrown out to bounce as it will, but to another, it is porcelain tile and if not handled carefully, will shatter into thousands of pieces.

Communication is a really fascinating subject. I just found out that female grasshoppers are deaf, but they sense an odor that is under the wing of a male grasshopper when he lifts his wing to make his mating call.

My mind is a scary place.

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