Walking Away From Friends

So something I thought interesting from the experience of going to the 20 year reunion last night is how we are able to drift away from friends without even seeing what's happening.  The last time I saw a lot of those people - in person, not on facebook - was May of 91.  Some of them I had seen almost everyday for thirteen years. We waved goodbye, excited that we had made it across that stage, took a few pictures and moved on in our lives... and we didn't notice that it was the last time! Of course we never know when it's the LAST time until it's passed.

And the question of children and spouses did come up.  I finally started saying "not yet" when someone asked if I had kids and how many.

It was interesting to see the people that have never changed. We had our little "real housewives" high school clique well represented. Still bullying, still unchanged. How do you spend 20 years living without changing? without growing?  As I was driving to the reunion, I was thinking about those people and how they had seemed so very important / scary in HS - I'd seen some posts from the happy hour that was held on Friday and had some idea as to what to expect. As I was driving, I thought of that Eleanor Roosevelt quote, you know the "inferior without your consent" one.  I've always kind of thought that was a stupid thing to say but I think it clicked for the first time. I decided to be very proactive in not giving a damn what these people thought.

I had a great time seeing old friends - although there were a great many people I did not recognize at all. Thank God for name tags! It was actually comical to see people trying to look at the tags out of the corner of their eye and then act as if they'd recognized you.

Friends for 30 years...

I'm glad I went. I need to be more aware of allowing friends to drift away. Real friends are way too rare to lose!