Andrew Strobridge

“Today, my life feels like a string of near-misses. Women I was unable to love, opportunities I failed to seize, moments of happiness I let drift away…”

     That’s a quote from one of my favorite movies and it doesn’t quite apply to me. But I was wondering today if I relate to that statement more than I feel I do.

     My “motto” (if you will) for the past few years has been to “Make the most of my time on earth”. I think I’ve done pretty good at that. I’m 22 years old and have seen and experienced things most people don’t see or do in their entire life. To put that quote into context, it was said by a real man named Jean-Dominique Bauby. Jean-Dominique (or Jean-Do as his friends referred to him) was the editor of French Elle magazine. In 1994 he had a stroke and was left paralyzed and basically laid in a bed for the rest of his life only able to blink one eye. Long story short, he wrote a book by blinking his eye while someone recited the alphabet. Aaaaanyway, I think you can see why he would say something like that, right?

     “But what about you Drew? You’re so lucky! You get to go all over the world and have fun and do all these amazing things! Why would you say such a thing?!”

     You’re very right. I’ve been very blessed (not lucky) to be constantly going to new places and seeing new things. I love it. I have never regretted it or thought I would want anything different. But for some reason today, I sort of had a new look at things in a way I have never thought about it.

     I think it started when I couldn’t get a ride to church so I decided to listen to a sermon from my church back in Arvada. (I love that church!) The sermon that I happened to listen to was about friendship. Not something you typically here a sermon on but it was actually really good. He said that the time we live in, in America, we live in the loneliest society that has ever been on the planet. Now that seems strange considering all of the ways technologically we have available to relate to each other. But even with all of this we are such an isolated society.

     I’m sure you’re wondering where I’m going with this, especially with that interesting quote at the top of the page. Well let me just say right now that I am not depressed. Not even close.

     I’ve never been the guy that wants to stay in the same town I grew up in, go to Uni right down the road, marry my girlfriend, raise my kids, and die all in the same place. I’m sorry if this is you but I just couldn’t handle that! I would probably go crazy and then I would probably be depressed. In fact I used to think very lowly of people who chose that life. But that was dumb of me. Like I said, I want to make the most of my time on earth. So naturally, I have been the guy to take every opportunity I possibly can Especially if it involves traveling somewhere! I will look for these opportunities if I have to but for some reason I don’t usually have to. They tend to fall in my lap. I don’t know why but I do enjoy it! ☺

     I love my life! I couldn’t be happier! So with all this excitement and adventure in my life, why do I feel so lonely today. People I love and care about surround me, Great friends that I have made over the past months. I was thinking about what my pastor said about friendships. Friends are for serving. What? Yeah, that’s what he said. He talked about David and Jonathan in the Bible. Jonathan wanted to serve David. It’s not about what you get out of a friendship. It’s about what you can put into it. That troubled me. I have loads of friends on just about every continent. I constantly meet people that I connect with all over the world. I love it. It’s great. The only problem being, I make friends in 3-6 months and then I’m off on my next adventure. As much as I love all the people I meet, and as much as I connect with them, once that 3 months is up, that’s it. We are still friends. I still care about them. We talk online. But we don’t ever grow to be any deeper friends than 3 months friends. It’s nearly impossible over facebook or skype. I have hundreds of friends. How many of those friends really deeply know me. How many of those friends do I really deeply know. How many of them know my hopes and dreams and my fears and what makes me happy. How many of them do I know that well? How many of my friends am I able to serve? That’s the big question. How many of my friends can I always be there for? The answer to that question made me uneasy because unfortunately it is very few. With the busy life I lead of going one place to the next, it is impossible for me to always be there for my friends. It’s even pretty dang hard to be there for them just some of the time. It’s impossible for me to know when someone’s having a bad day. It’s impossible for me to celebrate a birthday with them. It’s impossible for me to bring them chicken noodle soup when they are sick. It’s impossible for me to hug them when one of their family or friends dies. Basically it’s impossible for me to spend any sort of time with my friends. Which of course is bad for friendships.

     Like I said I have tons of friends. But when I try and think of real, close, Jonathan/David type friends, friends I can cry to, talk about anything with, friends who can tell me I’m being an idiot, friends who I can tell them that they are being an idiot… one or two come to mind. And unfortunately, I don’t get to see them very often at all.

     So now I will attempt (key word) to bring all of this randomness together. I said I used to think very lowly of people who I thought were stuck in a bubble and not going anywhere with their life. I thought they were missing out on so much. I thought that their life must seem like “a string of near-misses” like Jean-Do talked about. I thought that to live like them must feel a lot like Jean-Do felt like but only they were choosing it. But today I feel slightly different. I feel sort of lonely. I feel sort of tired. I’m wondering if I might be missing out on some things. Am I too busy trying to get to new places that I miss things? Are there “moments of happiness I let drift away” because I’m so eager for what’s next? I’m still don’t want to settle down and stay there till I die. I can’t. I still have so many places to see. I will see them. I guess my view has just changed on who is missing out. Maybe those people back home are missing out. In fact I know there is a lot they are missing. But I don’t think they are the only ones. I’m pretty sure I’m missing out on a lot too. And I feel really bad for they way I thought about how people choose to live. You are you. I am me. I’m sorry if I thought you should live differently. I don’t think we can look at our lives and see the things we are missing. The “string of near-misses”. We need to look and see the things that we have. I am blessed with a family that loves me. A God that will never leave me. More amazing opportunities than you could shake a stick at. What do you have? I don’t think I’ll stop moving on my adventures, but I think I might start to slow down a little and try and appreciate what I may have been missing.