Skip to content

Random Connections

A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Photos
  • Resources
  • Other Voices
  • Post Archives
  • Podcast
  • Home
  • Miscellaneous
  • Precis de Vie

Precis de Vie

Posted on May 16, 2008 By Tom No Comments on Precis de Vie
Miscellaneous

How does one summarize twenty years of life in two paragraphs?

It’s an interesting exercise. I guess for some its easier than others, especially if your life has been relatively stable – staying in pretty much the same career and location for that amount of time. For others, a couple of paragraphs would hardly suffice. Someone adept at concise descriptions, say, a poet, might have an easier time of it, regardless of the complexity of one’s life.

Today I heard from a friend that I haven’t seen in that amount of time, and was confronted with just such a task. Both of us did what we could to convey a summary in a brief e-mail. However summaries never do justice to the reality. I started writing, but wound up cutting out huge chunks of the narrative as overly wordy, or just not worth putting down. As I get older, I find it’s easier to leave out bits – “Yeah, I’m finishing up my tenth year in this district and twenty-three years in education. Time flies, etc., etc”

This seems to be happening more frequently. This past year one of my best friends from high school has moved back to our area, and his wife started working as our receptionist. I hadn’t seen him since his wedding, nearly twenty years ago, so we got to go through this exercise. I also bumped into another Furman grad sometime back, and went through a similar process. On the Unofficial Furman Football Page (UFFP) I’ve renewed other acquaintances online.

In these latter cases, catching up was brief, but we have maintained contact since then. We’ve had time to fill in the gaps. Does the anticipation of whether or not you’re ever going to encounter this person again, influence what you tell them about your life? Perhaps.

This year will be my 25th year reunion for Furman, so this fall I expect to run into even more people that I haven’t seen since graduation. When they ask what I’ve been up to in all this time, I think that I’ll put a bit thought into my reply. Instead of “the same old same old”, I may give them one of my cards and say, “Here, it’s all online.” That may not be very poetic, but at least it gets the job done.

Tags: friends

Post navigation

❮ Previous Post: Adventures in Audi-Land
Next Post: Wild Roses ❯

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Categories

  • EdTech (197)
  • Entertainment (201)
  • Family (123)
  • Gear (114)
  • General Technology (98)
  • Geocaching and Maps (208)
  • History and Genealogy (275)
  • Internet (141)
  • Local (458)
  • Miscellaneous (557)
  • Music (202)
  • Paddling (264)
  • Photography (781)
  • Podcast (15)
  • Rambling (233)
  • Rants (161)
  • Recipes (36)
  • Religion (48)
  • Restaurants (165)
  • Science (48)
  • Things Overheard (29)
  • Travel (413)
  • Uncategorized (142)
  • Washington Sabbatical (113)
  • Weirdness (59)

Recent Posts

  • Six Layer Bourbon Grits Bowl
  • How’s the House? Part 2
  • Carolina Ghost Towns – Merrittsville
  • Gimme Shelter
  • From Kingsbury to Stoneboro – Rambling in Lancaster County

Recent Comments

  • Curtis V Fink on Chasing the Swamp Rabbit – Part 3, Sievern and Edisto Academy
  • Bobby Stan Gillespie on Exploring Jacks Township
  • Richard Thornton on Paddling Up the Long Nose
  • John Guerrant on From Kingsbury to Stoneboro – Rambling in Lancaster County
  • John Guerrant on Gimme Shelter

Tags

blogging cemetery Christmas Columbia Edisto River edtech Entertainment family Flickr Florida Furman Furman University gear Georgia geotagging Ghost Town Ghost Towns Google Earth Google Maps GPS Greenville Greenville Chorale history Instructional Technology kayaking Lake Jocassee LCU Lowcountry Unfiltered maps Music North Carolina Paddling Photography rambling restaurant Restaurants review singing social networking South Carolina time-lapse Travel video Washington Washington State
May 2025
S M T W T F S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Apr    

Copyright © 2025 Random Connections.

Theme: Oceanly by ScriptsTown