My Sleepers Night

Remember the scene from Sleepers at the end when a bunch of old friends, after beating the baddies in a murder case (go to the link if you have no clue what I'm talking about), were just kinda hanging around, singing off key as a voice narrated the myriad of endings for these different friends? (Most of em' died or ended up in seclusion or something like that) While my life is far less dramatic, I had my own Sleepers scene last night. I had dinner with some old friends, friends who used to assume a fairly large proportion of my life during my days of religious credulousness. We had a good time, eating and playing silly games (Cranium and Rapidoh I think they're called). Its been a long time since I had such silly and simple fun. The idea of a good time for many of my friends these days involve no less than too much booze and the candyman. Not that I remonstrate the parties my friends throw, this one was just different and its difference laid in its ingenuousness. We had fun, moulding clay (think pictionary with playdoh), talking about days past and hopes for things to come. For one evening, I felt 18 again when life was uncluttered and artless. And it felt genuinely nice, yes, just nice. And should any of those friends be reading this, thank you for a wonderful evening.

But nights like these were meant to stay as just one night. One would imagine I would have wanted to stay there, in the simplicity of the moment where the complexities of life feared to tread, but no, I left as eagerly as I came. Such a night could never last beyond a moment. It wouldn't have taken much for our differences in opinion to emerge. From my support for same-sex relationships to my championing for religious reform, ugly altercations could have facilely ensued. But for that one night, we all, consciously or unconsciously, set aside our disparities in opinions, beliefs and principles to guess what the other was making from playdoh. Yes, I liked the ataraxia of the moment, but I too revel in the complexities of life. I wouldn't have been able to suppress my opinions long anyway. There are too many perennial outrages to deal with.

Much as all of us came, made inscrutable shapes from rather queer smelling clay, I'm glad we all went back home, back to lives we have and are trying to carve out for ourselves, back to our inconsonant and acrimoniously opposing points of views. Because difference isn't bad, I'm not perturbed because we stand on different grounds, I choose where I stand, and so must someone else. But even as our beliefs and principles continue to be discordant, I'm glad we can still come together and when do we, just stand together and try and understand one another. Because really, that's all that we can do isn't it?