When I graduated high school, everyone always told me, “Your high school friends are going to change.  You probably won’t all stay friends.  You won’t even recognize each other by the time you’re graduating again.”  I never believed anyone when they said this.  My friends and I?  We had something different.

Sure, going to college changed a lot of things.  We were no longer inseparable.  Our group wasn’t quite so cohesive; there were smaller groups that got together more often.  Even so, there was always a connection there.  There was a knowledge that we had shared so much of our lives together that no matter where we were, we could go back to the way things were.

That first summer after our freshman year of college was difficult.  Things were very new and very different.  Our worlds had been turned upside down and the way we acted and reacted to the world was transforming.  It wasn’t so easy to get everyone together anymore, but still we kept up with one another.  We kept tabs on what was going on in each other’s lives.  We still were something you could call friends.

After that first summer, things eased back into a pattern, though our friendship had absolutely changed.  Not all of us returned every summer, some of us did a better job keeping up than others.  Now that we have all graduated college, many of us have returned home to our parents’ house, because we don’t quite know where to go yet.  Our lives are changing again, into something that almost resembles adult life, but the more we spend time together, the more I realize just how fortunate we are to have this last summer.

Tonight we got together to eat dinner, swim in the pool and play cards.  The music station we listened to kept playing music that brought us back to our four years in high school.   We reminisced, played the card game “Tic” for 3 hours straight.  We drank some wine and ate a delicious dinner.  Everything about the night reminded me of our weekends during school, but this time we were a little bit older.  Wiser… might be pushing it, but it was something amazing to see.  We made it through these four years and I know now that no matter where we are, we will always be able to pick up a phone and catch up like  no time has passed.

My former roommate said to me tonight, “You smile so much more when you’re home.”  I don’t really do it on purpose, but I know what she means.  At school I felt pulled in so many directions – when I was at school, I felt like I was letting down my mom, dad and Z and so on.  You see the pattern?  Even though I’m still far away from my dad, 3/4 isn’t so bad.   I feel as complete as I ever will and that definitely leads to smiles.