Old Friends

I attended my 25th High School Reunion on Saturday night.

I graduated from Hamilton-Wenham back in 1989, and while I attended college in Virginia and have been fortunate enough to travel a good bit, I haven’t roamed far in regards to my permanent address.  From Hamilton, to Gloucester, to Rockport.  And, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, I get together with High School friends periodically and bump into plenty while out and about, but I haven’t had a good, long night of skipping down Memory Lane and laughing (and laughing and laughing) in far too long.

It’s funny how you don’t realize how much you miss a time in your life and the people you shared it with until you have the opportunity to be in their light again. I had such an amazing time on Saturday and left with such warm fuzzies for how lucky we all were to be such a force in each other’s lives for a number of years. It was so perfect to pick up conversations right where they left off 10, or 15, or 20…or even 25 years ago.

Lots of what we did was giggle, and blush, and piece together fragmented memories of stories that took several of us to unravel.  Who did what? Where? No!  Oh, that’s right! Was I there? Were you there?  And so on.  But then, another thing we did, was share our grown-up selves with each other.  We swapped parenting stories.  Talked about education.  We offered advice.  We shared our losses….our illnesses.  Our highs and lows.  I laughed with old friends….while reveling in my admiration for the grown ups they’ve become.

I get corny that way, for sure.

And tonight I’m finding myself missing them the same way I did that September morning back in 1989 as I left Hamilton to head off and away to college.

With the maiden name of Wadsworth, I’m a bit biased to the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but I thought of this poem when I woke up this morning.

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Crosby, Stills, and Nash concerts at Great Woods will always be some of my favorite high school memories….this song always takes me right back to a really phenomenal group of friends.