It's actually a rather poignant post, as apart from the item below that I am tongue-in-cheek referring to, it looks like a real friend of mine is also deciding to bid me farewell.
Anyway, more on that later. Today, I dropped off this motheriser of a piece at a courier, on its way to a new home and owner in QLD. I bought this while pissed, back in 2012, when we were living in Seni Mont Kiara - to this day the most awesome abode we have ever had. I had watched Clarke hit his triple, and then when Skip was over one day, this popped up on the TV. I immediately bought it. It came with us, to Texas later that year, then back again in 2014 when we moved into Damansara Heights. There it finally got displayed, put on the wall within a frame, custom-made by the awesome people at http://hongcreativespace.com.my/ Hong was cheap, friendly, reliable and did excellent work. I still have his work displayed in my office, with my boxed mining models having pride of place there now.
But when we moved back to Oz in 2016, the beautiful framed bat went into storage in my shed. There it stayed until late 2019, when we moved into our new home in Echuca. But it went from being in a shed to being in a cupboard. During that time, something had changed within me, and I no longer yearned to collect everything under the sun. Wifey and I have learned (ok mostly me) to adopt a more minimalist lifestyle, as all the moving we have done has really shown just how much of a drag having a lot of possessions can be - and how little most of them really add to the richness of our lives. So over the past eight months, I have been busy selling a lot of it off, and have been very successful in doing so. Previously we would simply donate whatever we didn't need, and frankly over the years we have donated several households-worth of goods. But a lot of the more collectible ones remained, and it is those that I have been letting go. I still have a small Lego collection and a decent metal collection, as well as a few remaining bits of sports memorabilia, but that's about it. After living in Kupang for 18 months, essentially out of three suitcases, we found that we enjoy this kind of lifestyle more. Of course we still have all our kitchen and household goods, and we have bought new furniture, but nothing we are particularly attached to. I call this progress!
Now, onto the less fun part of the post. Recently (last few weeks) a long-time friend has started ignoring my online messages. Not some - all. I know he has seen them, but he probably doesn't realise I know. Anyway, I messaged a few more times asking what was up, no reply. Hey, there could be a valid reason, but our relationship has always been "put it all on the table straight up" and there is no reason to think it should be otherwise now. I spoke to him not a couple of months ago and all good. He lives in QLD himself. So why just simply stop taking calls, stop responding to messages?
The thing is, well you know what, your fucking loss mate. Yes you're my friend, but life has taught me some harsh realities in recent years, and the #1 of those is - life is short, make the most of it, and invest time only into those who invest it back. Things have changed a bit since I got this latest job. It is in many ways, my dream job, and I love it. I am just so happy doing what I do and it has been some time since I have been in this position. I do only work 40-45 hours per week, but it does take a fair bit of my emotional energy too, plus some extra travel on top of those hours.
Then we have my amazing family. My wife and three beautiful and simply incredible children. I love them all, with all my being. I know that their time as children is so precious, and with some health scares earlier in the year, I also know that my time with them (and anyone else for that matter) is also bloody precious. So I am ensuring I am there for them all when I am at home.
In a week we have 7 x 24 hours. That's 168 hours. Take 8 hours per day off for sleep, which while I may not spend it all counting Z's, I do spend that much time in bed, mostly asleep. So 168 - 56 - 50 (work + road time) = 62 hours remaining. Each morning I spend a good 1.5 hours doing breakfast, coffee, bathroom, etc. That's 10.5 hours, call it 10. So we're down to 52 hours remaining. On weekdays I get home from work, chill for a bit, we eat dinner, clean up, chill a little more as a family, and then bed. That's about 20 hours in the week. 32 hours left. Most of that is obviously weekend time. I spend a bit more of that with my family: cooking, playing board games, building Lego, going on adventures, etc. Add some time on for showering etc, and not a lot is left. I need some of that time for myself and my own interests, be it reading, noodling, metal detecting, or whatever.
So you get the drift, I don't have a lot of spare time. With that time, I need to devote some to my extended family, and my friends. Not a lot, but they're worth it. The thing is, through all of this I have discovered something (that I have been suspecting for many years). There are friends who will yell out to you if they haven't heard from you for a while, be that weeks or even years, and there are friends that you will never hear from - it only works when you make the effort. I have come to the realisation that I have a number of this second category of friends. It is kind of saddening, but it's the truth. And those that remain firmly in the first category are not always the ones you thought they would be. Skip, JR, Brian, Stu, Subra, Adam, Darcel, to name a few of the good ones. Plus of course my mum and sister. My brother too, although that's not always as easy as maybe it should be.
Anyway, so there it is. Am I saying goodbye forever to those who put in no effort? Not really, but just don't expect me to be the one constantly bridging the gap from now on. If that means we drift apart forever, then so be it. We all have people important to our lives at certain times, and not all will come with us down the track. That doesn't downplay their importance at the time they were more central, it just changes the kind of relationship I thought I had with them. This friend I mentioned above, who has decided to stop responding to me. Well I will likely try one more time sometime, to see if I can talk to him, but the amount of energy I am willing to invest into relationships that don't go both ways is limited. Time, and life is simply too precious to waste.
