Jill's Not In Right Now, But Please Leave a Message . . .

Well, my faithful readers ( all four of you -- its so exciting when you can double your readership), I am off on holidays. In just one day we will be setting out on a month long adventure to British Columbia. It should be great to reconnect with friends and family out there, and I can't wait to see the mountains and the ocean again, and introduce my son to tide pools and beach combing.

It will be kind of strange, becuase I've changed so much since I was last there. I've grown my hair, become a mom (I was technically a mom when I left, but 6 weeks into momhood does not equal identity change, it just equals a blank, bleary-eyed stare), a minister's wife, and a resident of Saskatchewan. How can I possibly sum up my experiences in a few hours' visit? Especially since many of my friends have had similar changes -- some have moved, others had more children, or become pregnant, or changed jobs or left a marriage. It makes me sort of nervous.

But then I remind myself that true friendships are based on something simultaneously more solid and more insubstantial than these things. They are based on a connection of two souls, a delight and interest in another person, and a desire to enter into their world: their thoughts, experiences and emotions. And this connection will still be there, no matter how we change on the surface, no matter what happens in between visits.

And then I am excited to go back and rediscover the parts of myself that I left with these people and totally fogot about. For me, visiting old friends is like going to the Lost and Found. I always realize "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that . . . that is a part of me. That is how I was, how I still am somewhere in here. These are the things I liked to do when I was here or there." Its like picking up lost fragments of your past and clicking them into place, seeing yourself through the eyes of the past. And I love that.

Also, generally speaking, it is like going to the Lost and Found because I have inevitably left something at their house . . .

Have a good month, everyone. Talk to you in Sept.