One plus One equals Three

Absence is a funny thing, they say that it makes the heart grow fonder and I suppose that’s true to some extent. But absence is absence, it means you or they (whoever ‘they’ are to you) are not in the same place and therein lies the complexity of the human condition. When that happens, absence can disconnect us emotionally too.

Now, before you all read the riot act to me, understand, while we all like the warm and fuzzy idea of secure familly ties and or friendships, the reality is that life moves. It does. And we move with it, like leaves on the water’s surface gliding, falling, rounding each twist and turn and everyday we move further away from where we first began.

My point is that absence can attribute feelings to a situation that are somehow more heightened. The reason then that perhaps when we say we “miss” our family and friends it’s because our memories of them are simply fresh in our minds. We feel a disconnection from their presence that we don’t want to have in that moment.

It doesn’t take a genius to put one and one together to get three (oh, you don’t get three when you add one plus one together? Nevermind, in my world it does!) It is inherent in us, this “missing” others bit. We are reminded that part of us exists by the sensorial prod of what we hear, see, smell, taste or feel. It’s the associations we attribute to these senses that define our “missing” moments. And such feelings are real (or at least they feel very real).

Sometimes I think we say we miss someone when what we really mean is we need company. Our own doesn’t suffice in that moment. There’s a simple solution to that, go get into it (company I mean) or give it to someone else. That’s not rocket science!