Old Friends

My wife and I got to see some old friends from college last night. He is in the military and they are in the middle of another move. It was nice to see them again and get to know their entire family. Their girls are getting big and are good kids. It is amazing to me how different peoples' lifestyles can be. I personally cannot imagine moving three times in five years. They seem to not be too phased by it. I think it would knock my whole family out of whack. We are pretty set in our routine and the kids really enjoy where they are at. I guess all of us would adapt. You don't really have an option. I admire them for being able to move and make a fresh start so many times. I guess I just think of our family as the typical Midwest family that stays pretty close to home and remain, for the lack of a better term, "simple" people. By the term "simple" I mean enjoying the simple things in life like watching your kids play in the backyard or having a summer cookout with friends. Simple to me means being happy with the everyday things that life provides you such as a smile or comment from your kids. I have a feeling of being safe and relaxed knowing that my family is living in a small Midwest city where things are a little slower than the big city. Don't get me wrong. I do like to travel and visit interesting places but it sure is nice to have a place you can call "home". I am not saying that my friends have it wrong. It is their life and if they enjoy it that is wonderful. They thing that really made me proud last night was when they said that when he retired from the military that they would love to move back to the Quincy area. To me there is no bigger compliment.

My parents always took my brother and I on vacations and we enjoyed them and didn't always know how lucky we were. It was nice to see the way other people lived but I always thought it was nice to say "We're on our way home!". I am proud to be from the Midwest and traveling, or living, in other parts of the country has always made me appreciate where I came from.

A Friend Revisited

I returned home yesterday from a visitation and funeral. I left Thursday after school and returned Friday after the funeral. It is nice to be back home but seeing my close friend was truly special. I have not seen him in a long while. We spent almost the entire time at the visitation, and at his uncle's house afterward, reminiscing about all of our adventures as teenagers. I feel that me being their really lifted his spirits, and mine, and took us both back to a time when we had no worries. The thing that was amazing to me is that we shared these memories and each of us seemed to have the exact same warm feeling about these specific times. I know that sounds weird but after so many years of just keeping memories to yourself you begin to wonder if you embellish on them in your mind to make them more desirable. In a way, it was validation, in our minds, that we have lived full and happy lives up until this point. We both spent a lot of time laughing. We even took the time to talk about some of the important things in our lives going on currently. You know, bragging about our kids and wives, how our jobs were going, etc. We talked about points such as "What are the advantages and disadvantages of private school?", "Large schools and small schools?", "Should kids be playing sports year round?", "How much of what we learned have we put to use in our lives?". Deep conversation, right? Somehow it didn't feel that way. It was amazing how we talked. I mean, we haven't seen each other in around fifteen years and we started talking like we hadn't been apart a day.

Friends are truly special! I know that all of us are guilty of this, taking friends for granted, but I think we should all step back and take a look at how lucky we are to have close friends and people that love us. Who knows, we could be the next person to be celebrated at a funeral. Wouldn't it be nice to know that we all took the time to talk and stay in touch with our true friends, and family? As we both said several times, it would have been nice to get together under different circumstances, but at least we got together.