Grodence Here. 

This latest post is a little shorter than what I usually write.  For this piece, I am expressing some thoughts that I, Grodence Paquado have had over the past few weeks.

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Throughout our life, there are countless people that we will have consistent interactions with.  When I say consistent, I mean more than a few times.  We have relationships with all kinds of people depending on our age, like classmates, friends, teachers, colleagues, bosses, to name a few¹.  We get close to many of them, talking every day, sometimes doing substantial activities with them, such as going to a dinner party, or going on vacation together. 

For most of the people in our lives that we associate with, we lose touch when the thing that holds us together ends.  For example, when you graduate high school, you stop talking to most of your friends that you went to school with.  When your doctor that you have seen on a regular basis retires, you don’t call them up on the phone usually and ask how they are doing.  Colleagues at work who will be good friends who talk every day, and who will have lunch with every week will stop interacting when one of them gets another job.  I have seen many instances of co-workers who are as tight as can be, and when one of them leaves and I ask how they are doing, the other person will say “I haven’t talk to them since they left this job”.  It sometimes amazes me.  

Even myself, at 35 years of age, as I am writing this piece, am thinking about the numerous people I have associated with throughout my life.  Where are they now?  What do they do for work?  Are they happy?  Most the people I am thinking about I have not spoken to in years.  One might think that by writing this, my message is that we should keep in touch with more people.  We should, but this is not me advocating as such, just stating an observation. It does however highlight how durable relationships can withstand the test of time and most importantly, distance.

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In pop culture, when it comes to siblings, or married people, the male is almost always older than the female.  In T.V shows with families, there is usually the brother who is oldest, and the sister(s) who are younger.  The father of course is older than the mother.  When it comes to the people in my orbit of life, it is a similar dynamic, though not as much.  When I think about my immediate family, most of the married men are older than the females though there are a few aunts and uncles where it is the other way around.  Even though the pattern of T.V families somewhat meshes with the family in my life, there are many family units in this great world of ours that have a sister that is the oldest and younger brothers.²  In fact, when my twin sister marries her fiancé this October, she will be older than him.  One thing that is notable about the sitcom Modern Family is that the conventional family of the three families featured in the show has an older sister, and middle sister, and a youngest brother.  The pairing of older sisters and younger brothers in entertainment is a trend that should continue to increase and reflect real family lives.

1. Not to mention Family. ↩︎
2. Including my own. Older sister, twin sister, and me. ↩︎