I have a large number of old friends with whom I stay in contact. One good friend whom I have known since we were three, and friends from elementary school, Sunday school, middle school, high school, college, law school and beyond. These are all my old friends. I also have a lot of friends that I have made since I have been in Washington, and some of them are good friends, but I don’t consider them old friends.

On Friday, I am going to lunch with about a dozen friends with whom I practiced law at my first firm (of three) in Washington. They do not get classified as “old” friends, even though I have known some of them over 50 years and all of them over 35 years.

This coming October 13 will be the 55th anniversary of my arrival in Washington. I still have friends that I met during the first few weeks after I unpacked. But I just don’t consider them old friends. Long-time friends, yes. But not old friends.

Why is that the case? I think it is because they are all friends from this phase of my life. The Washington phase. The others were from past lives.

It is natural to think about this during the high holidays. This is not only because I tend to hear from people from all phases of my life during this period. It is also because when I attend services at a synagogue to which we have belonged for about 40 years, I tend to see a lot of people that I have known for decades. This includes a lot of people that I wouldn’t really classify as “friends”, but people I have known casually for years and years as well as many who are clearly my friends.

Many of these people I see on a regular basis. But some I have not seen since last year’s High Holidays, and others I haven’t seen, or don’t remember having seen, for several years.

What is remarkable about this is that, for the most part, these people look much older than the last time I saw them. Sometimes much older. And it both surprises me and shocks me.

But today is Thursday. My morning breakfast group meets on Zoom. We range in age from our late 60s to our 90s, with one member over 100. I see this group every week. We have not aged nearly as much as those I only see on Rosh Hashanah.

I then go to my list of approximately 600 Facebook friends. I started with Facebook about 15 years ago, I think. I count 45 of my 600 Facebook friends as no longer alive. Yes, time does march on.

I haven’t mentioned my relatives. I was surrounded by them growing up in St. Louis, many of them much older than I was. Some in the generation of my great-grandparents. I see them all clearly.

I have three first cousins remaining in St. Louis (Donna, Bob, and Rich), and one first cousin once removed, with whom I have remained in contact. Three other first cousins elsewhere, one in Oregon (Andy), one in Kansas (Albert), one in Arkansas (Jon). I am older than all of them. In fact, to my knowledge, only two close relatives older than me remain alive, two first cousins of my mother’s. One, five years older, my cousin Natalie in Sacramento, I spoke with on a phone call about a year ago. Her sister Judy in Miami, ten years older, I have not had any contact with for a decade. No one else from my childhood, except for classmates, remain.

I have been very lucky all of these years to have made and kept so many friends, and to have remained in contact with, or met later in life, so many relatives. And to have known so many who are no longer here.

I can recreate within me them all. It was Whitman, was it not, who said something like “I have worlds within me”?

Well, I will do him one better. I have family and friends within me. Societies. Civilizations. They are all there, quietly biding their time. But now and then appearing. Making me who I am.