CROSSING THE BRIDGE OF LIFE

Never in my wildest thoughts did I ever think when I left work on Friday, March 13, 2020, our world, the entire Earth, would come to a complete stand still. It’s been a year since COVID-19 spread its tentacles throughout the world, creating the pandemic. The days, weeks, months all became a blur of the year 2020, in its path created a new way of living. I think many of us thought initially our employers would shut down operations for a week, maybe two – disinfect all of our contact points and reopen sparkling clean and ready to pick back up where we left off. When the schools decided to close down and go to a virtual learning environment (literally overnight), I knew the way we lived yesterday will change indefinitely from this day forward.

I have been working remotely from home since March 17, 2020 and go into my office once a week. Initially, I would go in on Saturday, to avoid contact with anyone but after a month or so I started to go in on Fridays to drop off current week’s work and pick up the next week’s workload. It also provided me some much needed in person human interaction albeit socially distant and have as necessary any one-on-one with my supervisor. I don’t think any of us realized how much of an impact our social life revolves around our work circles and how much we miss the water cooler chats, the girly gossip, the manly sports debriefing and even the daily drama drudge by the coffee machine.

This seems to be a recurring theme in my journey, as is in many other posts, but it always bears repeating, I don’t live my life with regrets as there is no rewind or redo but only to make the difference forward in life. A large lesson learned from this pandemic, my introvert tendencies remained intact however; the lack of actual physical contact with my immediate inner circle of colleagues and friends left me feeling quite lonely at times.

However, in this case its not as much regret and being lonely as the pandemic gave me an opportunity to reflect back on my life and some of the consequences of choices I made. I looked back at my high school years, I wished I would have gotten to know many of my classmates better back then. I see many of them who formed tight bonds of lifelong friendships from growing up together since elementary school. I moved down here in Grade 7 but had to restart my social circle twice, once in Grade 7 when we first moved down to Miami from just outside of Detroit. Then again, a year later when moved out of Miami and to Hollywood at the start of Grade 8. My high school class was an exceptional group of eclectic cliques who for the most part got along with each other. Many of my classmates and I chat with regularly on social media or exchange pleasantries at our reunions, but a few we call each other regularly to exchange holiday greetings, celebrate birth dates or just to catch up and reminisce or sometimes to make plans to meet and catch up while vacationing near each other.

Social media has a bad habit of pushing those close to you further way but also can bring those far away closer and with the pandemic we were introduced to Zoom. Do you remember the cartoon the Jetsons from the 1960s? Think of the video-telephone concept and all the other gadgets that came to fruition from that show alone…I am sorry, I wondered off again…back to my post.

Prior to the escalation of the pandemic, my Dad’s brother (for common terms – my Uncle Josef’s) oldest son, Kornél and his wife, Éva and two son’s Zoltán and Peter came to visit us here, in Florida for their very first to the United States. I was able to take off almost two full weeks of work and play tour guide in my own backyard during their visit. As you probably noted, I referred to my father’s family in terms as if they were not related to me. I often refer to much of my family (both my father’s side and mother’s side equally) still residing in Hungary in this way. I do this not out of disrespect, but most of them I only got to know for a brief visit when I went to Hungary in 1990. During my visit, I met countless relatives from both sides of the family with very brief visits at their homes. It was easier to get to know who’s who by referring to which side of the family they are from and how make up our family tree. This includes Kornél (his wife or sons weren’t in the picture then) whom I met almost 30 years earlier when I sat in the front seat as he drove Mom and I around for a tour around Lake Balaton. Other than my parents, my other closest family would be few cousins and their parents (who are now deceased) in Toronto which I’ve known all my life. One cousin had children of his own. My Mom’s late half brother had a daughter (another cousin), who now resides outside of Denver, Colorado. These cousins and I keep in somewhat contact and keep updated in each other’s life through social media.

I digress, during this pandemic, I was able to have a year filled with self-reflection, mindfulness and self-reflection. Much of it came down to a lot of introspection of my own life. It is easier to place blame on the pandemic than to seeing I am now over 50 years-old, I seemed to have more time to be more focused on myself. Here goes nothing...summation of what my year of thoughts on friends and family.

The bridge of adulthood needs to continually maintained, repaired and sometimes parts replaced. When I was young, I didn’t realize all the pieces the bridge required in building it, let alone the effort it takes to keep it operational. When I was young, the bridge of friends came easily through sharing commonalities of classes, lunch periods and simpler times. As I got older, these commonalities and time seemed to get narrower as my experiences and my social circle broadened and those close childhood friendships became more of nostalgic memories.

Since becoming an adult, I have always said life gets in the way of living and definitely life is not the adulthood I signed up for. Not that my life is anywhere close to being dysfunctional or horrible, it is just not up to the hype which movies, television and even social media make it out to be. I think turning back the hands of time and return to the basics of what makes a complete life needs to introduced in school and not allow social media to raise this next generation from birth with expectations of how their bridge of life will be built perfectly for them. Our next generation is in for quite a rude awakening from their adolescence as they face the real world when they realize social media didn’t provide them the tools to build, maintain and repair the life’s bridge.

As I get older I find myself more distant from friends and family as we all get caught up in the daily grind of our lives; raising families, caring for aging family, maintaining the house responsibilities, working our jobs/careers etc and we often forget our friends and family who can be our support and them as well. I started examining the bridge closely, finding more often than not, the bridge is in disrepair. Not only is the original paint job’s luster long lost but the rivets holding the beams together are rusting and cracking, suspension cables are less taut and the road is filled with pot holes of varying sizes and depths.

Armed with my toolbelt, I begin to repair and restore my bridge to its original opulence. I begin to bring its brilliance back with a fresh coat of paint and watch it shine in the sun’s light. One at a time, I replace the rusting rivets with sparkling silver ones and subsequently stretch the suspension cables to the right firmness. I fixed and filled the potholes and repaved the road, allowing for a smooth crossing over to the other side. I look back at my finished work with pride, the bridge, almost as good as new, and with just as much strength, I hope to maintain the bridge over time and not let time take over. There may not be a next time, where I may be as fortunate to save the bridge from years of neglect with only remnants of sentimental memories of what once was, much like my childhood memories.

Sometimes, the best lessons in life are not taught through a formula ridden algebra book or the language arts book filled with sentence trees; but returning to the basics of feeling of something greater than yourself, guides your journey through life. The difference you make in one person’s life simply by being genuine, sharing a smile, taking time to care and of utmost importance, be true to yourself. Take time to be thankful and remind friends and family more often on how much and what they mean to you. It’s serves us both well to keep in touch with our friends and family, near and far and finally keep our own bridges in good repair and enjoy those in our lives and those who add to it. It’s in time, we find the longer the bridge remains in good repair and operational, we will always know that when its our turn to cross over to the other side, we can look back with a comfortable stride in our walk, knowing in the end, we indeed lived a life well lived.