I didn’t know what to say to him. We were the best of best friends for so many years, but its been years since we’ve talked. It’s funny how friends slip away, but real friends are never more than a conversation away. After a series of “It’s been so longs” and a little catch-up small talk, boom, there you are. The intervening time slips away and it’s you and your friend.

We both have young daughters, mine is twenty-three. He has two, one seventeen another nineteen. I don’t remember them ever playing together. Four year’s age difference, divorces and dislocations on each side, too bad, it would have been cool if they’d been friends.

I’d gotten the bad news from a rickety series of emails and phone calls, last known addresses and parents still living in our old home town. My friend had suddenly lost his oldest daughter. Within hours I found myself speaking to buddies kept in touch with through the most tenuous of connections. We all have kids, none could come close to wrapping our heads around such a loss knowing we would come face to face with it over the next few days. I immediately called my daughter and told her I loved her as a feeling of helplessness enveloped me.

It’s like duh… We talk about it all the time, it’s a core tenet, so why are we so rocked by change? OK, maybe I need to get out of the third person. Why am I so rocked by change?

That’s the question. We get used to this or that, the trail clears, widens, and the rut deepens. It may sound apocalyptic but it’s not so dramatic, we do it with everything. Being habitual isn’t the problem, it’s our blind faith in these habits, the non-questioning life.

When a friend and mentor recently made a change, a change to further his practice, a positive change, I felt my clinging to the status quo rear up in my life. Such a simple thing.

I spent several days thinking, “This sucks!” even though I knew intellectually this was a positive move for all involved. “What an asshole I am,” I thought. So conditioned in what I like and what is familiar, it makes one reflect on forests and trees.

It also brings to light just what an expansive journey this life, this questioning life is, and how steep even are the foothills.