Chrisonomicon

Sunday, September 22, 2002

Gaps between entries can sometimes speak louder than everyday accounts; they tell of long weekends spent out with friends, at parties or bars or Avalanche games, in the park enjoying the fading summer, or lounging in bed reading the newspaper. Sometimes the details aren't important. After keeping sporadic record of the past few years, I've come to discover that the most satisfaction seems to stem from merely knowing your time was well spent, perhaps with someone you care about.

I've been doing a lot of digging this weekend, looking for the roots to my feelings and views. Chekhov wrote, “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.” Is it possible to do this yourself, to truly see who you are on your own without getting in your own way? Stan said tonight that we seem to grow the most from intimate relationships with others and it makes sense to me: you see yourself from your partner's point of view. Your strengths suddenly become heroic and beautiful, your faults blatantly obvious. It takes a certain amount of character to deal with these revelations.

That's where I am at this point and the past few days' silence reveals more than I can summarize in words in terms of self-discovery and learning to appreciate someone's presence in your life, whether it's long-lived or brief. In either event, it's been a trying time. Then again, sometimes things worth having and things worth achieving take hard work.