I caught up on the details as best I could, especially stuff like who is married to whom and all that, and then just let the rest of it go. It is much easier than listening to a three-hour autobiography of each and every person you ever knew. Just sum it up in a few sentences and be done with it, since I wasn t around to see it the first time, it couldn t have been that important. I did the same for myself. Save the deep stuff for some other time.
Someone invariably asks.
As little as possible, I say. Sometimes the answer is working, working at the same place, just having fun with my 12 children or some other half-hearted attempt at real humor and no real attempt at truth. It is about all anyone wants to know, anyway. It isn t where you ve been that matters, it s the fact that you made it back to the same spot again. It is one of those free round-trip life tickets, where you look around and you realize you ve been there before.