Nostalgia

An oldie, but a goodie. This was taken at my wedding reception, June 2007. That lovely lady in the classy Molly Ringwald dress is my maid-of-honor, best friend and the only person in my bridal party. Halbastram's best man was his brother, who isn't pictured here. The rest of the folks here are some of the greatest people in the world. As you could probably tell, it's a bit of a boy's club, but my bestie and I fit right in. There are two I've known since college, one who is an ex of my bestie and one who I got to know through the bestie's ex. And Halbastram, of course.

I only bring this photo up because I'm seriously missing these people. Like most college friendships, we've all moved to different parts of the world and only convene on holidays, since our families still live in the area we used to haunt. Of course we promise that we'll keep in touch and call each other or write each other or visit each other whenever we have any money or time off of work. But circumstances always prove otherwise. My best friend lives and works for a very popular radio host in California, which is a dream to me. I have the perfect excuse to visit this sunshine and surf capital, but I've only been once. She comes to visit often, twice now just for my birthday, and I keep in touch with her family, who adore Halbastram and I something fierce. Many times I think perhaps I'm the bad friend because I don't get to California as often as she comes to Chicago. But I know she doesn't mind.

I know that we can't get those great nights back: drinking until 5am during an impromptu gathering and not realizing it until someone asks, "hey, is it about midnight yet?" (midnight had looooooong since passed); celebrating a birthday during an ice storm and watching our cars slide down the parking lot; laughing at the awful dancers at an awful night club; sleeping on the couch at the college radio station; buying a dirty book for the birthday boy and passing it around the table at the restaurant; losing money to the drunkest guy during a game of poker and trying to console the sore loser (oh, I have sweet sweet memories from that night). The most I can do is try to savor and preserve those few moments we have as we get older.

And maybe, just maybe, we can create new memories that don't involve beer, whiskey or vodka. Not that I'd want that, of course...