My Top 5 Lowlights - Number 3 - Historical friends

One of the greatest things about travelling is meeting up with historical friends, namely people who, because of work, family, geography or other special circumstances, you only get to spend a few hours with every few years. Now you may be wondering why this is on a list of lowlights, and rightly so, but it’s sometimes quite sad to realise how small a role you play in other people’s lives, especially so for people who at one stage in your life you were the closest of companions.

Meeting up with one friend was particularly cutting for me after learning that they had been in a psychiatric hospital for several months due to a long undiagnosed condition that was fortunately now (although had always been) completely treatable with medication. It was cutting because I had no idea at the time, nor any idea even at the time of organising to meet up with them (made worse by the fact that on that morning I had seriously considered cancelling due to time constraints). We are called to be all things to all people, but I’m quite often reminded by how I’m only some things to some people, only some of the time.