Touching the past in the present

Within our lives we often go through experiences that last a few years and pass into the annals of history.
During those years we often make friends and create family-like relationships that during those periods sustain and mean the world to us.
Then one day it all ends and we move on to other frontiers with new worlds to conquer and new friends to make.
Our high school, college or military experiences are often this way, and when we graduate or are discharged we are catapulted out of those environs and those friendships forced to make a new field of play.
After that, these types of situations are more relevant to those people who have jobs that are often project based or simply enjoy moving from job-to-job.
In the last few days I have found myself taken back among friends who at one time were present, but life moved on and so did we.
It was amazing to me how we were able to pick up on old conversations and shared memories that only we might understand and were able to recall great people who are now gone but remain within our hearts and minds.
While many spend years in one place often working for the same employer, I have spent a lifetime creating short but meaningful experiences working with many amazing people through music entertainment and film and TV. With each opportunity I picked up a circle of friends and created bonds that sometimes amaze even me.
I can gather with someone from one circle laugh and talk about the common memories and personalities that rotated within it, then walk a few feet away talking with another old friend and do the same about another circle.
It is fascinating to me how our minds can compartmentalize our lives so efficiently that we might do that even within the same room.
Though my recent years have limited my contact with those older circles, I found my spirit and my hope for the future reinvigorated based on those shared past moments.
They provided me a window to see into once who I was and whom I still am within.
The smiles, the laughs shared with the great people who once walked beside me and whom now rest somewhere in the sod reminded me that they still walk in my laughter, in my smiles and in my stories of them. They live as long as I do and someone else from the circle does, so we can encourage each other in those shared moments,
Life is a blessing. Its phases provide us benchmarks upon which we may build a chapter that allows us to grow. As the page is turned and a new chapter is headlined, we from time-to-time enjoy a flashback, but ultimately, it’s our job to forge ahead, creating the energy for new circles of influence. Think upon this; one-day two old friends get together to talk about old times. Will your name come up? Will something you did or said be shared with a smile?
Are you creating circles of influence that will last for ages? If not, maybe you should start. Today is a good day for it.