An unexpected guest

Yesterday afternoon my district boss showed up at my branch to talk to me. I was taken aback b/c he's only been here maybe twice in the almost two years I've worked here. The bank is making some reorganization changes and my branch will be placed into a new district that he won't be in charge of. The reason for his visit was to wish me and my tellers well and to say goodbye. I did not expect him to even be thinking about us let alone make the hour trip to see us in person. He's a good guy, but still a surprise.

We went into my office and started bs-ing. We talked about general stuff for a few minutes and then he got very serious and very personal. He apologized for not coming down more and he apologized for not being more active in my transition into this branch. I won't go into the boring details of my first three months with this company, but it wasn't pretty. When I was offered the position I hold now, it was in his words, "mutually beneficial." I needed a branch and he had a branch without a manager. What he was apologizing for was the fact that he hadn't touched base with me since then to see if the position was still "beneficial" for me. His hole had been filled so he had put the situation to the back of his desk and his mind. I assured him that I was happy where I was at or I would have taken one of the three banks I'd been offered since if I wasn't. (His blank stare told me he didn't know I'd been offered other jobs. Oops. Oh well.) It was a good conversation.

Well, as is usual with me, I couldn't stop thinking about other stuff b/c of his visit. Relationships, acquaintances, etc. are interesting things. I spent two years at my last bank, and I was really close to the people there. But I keep in contact with only one person of the 15-30 people I knew there. Like I said, I was really close to those people. What happened? The previous job: two years, at least ten good co-workers and relationships, no contact since I left. The job before that: four and a half years, ten or so good relationships (even deep friendships,) I run into (by accident) one guy about twice a year. And my churches...I spent twenty years in one church and 8 in another. I was involved in a lot of stuff with a lot of people, and built some great friendships. Since I left, not much of anything. I feel like I should feel horrible about that. But then the "Well, that's life!" cliche comes out and everything's supposed to be fine. Really?

So much of life is relational. I've used this as a object-lesson on many occasions. Relationships are the very backbone of our culture. So why do we so quickly lose connection with people that were so ingrained in our lives for so long? Why do we let it happen? And why is it so easy to do? I don't have an answer, just my thoughts.