Friday: Old Friends, Old Memories...

Today, and tonight, were affirmations of my past and my ability to manage my current. I started the day late – to sleep nine hours is usually an indication of a rising illness – and then dealt with the misrepresentations of my past at the hands of a former employer and a current competitor. People can be very disappointing, especially when their sole objective is not to win, but simply to keep me from succeeding. To see them lose was a reminder that karma has her own way of guiding outcomes for each one of us.

This afternoon I actually enjoyed a leisurely drive west to Rutherfordton, to time with my friends from many, many moons ago. It is always fun to see how my relationship with certain people in my life never truly changes — to see Eric, and to spend time with his parents, and his son was a reminder of how our friendship has been a great constant in my life since 1984.

Eric was one of the first people I met at NCSSM – he lived across the hall from me and though we can from different and similar places, we pretty quickly hit it off. His easy humor, his overwhelmingly mischievous nature, and our jointly plotting evil minds caused us to have some great laughs. While he still drives like he’s 60 years old, he is a great combination of seriousness and laughter. It is that laughter that I wish I had more of in my own life.

And tonight, we sat in his parents’ kitchen, with a bunch of people from our younger days and remembered the hilarious acts, antics and mishaps of our youth director at First Presbyterian in Rutherfordton (which is pronounced as quickly as possible as to make it seem to be a single syllable). While I cannot tell you a single time I stepped foot in the church, the trips I got to enjoy as a castaway on their spring voyages to the beach or elsewhere during the summers were great memories. Ann, the good soul that she is, sat in the middle of the dining room with her husband of 25+ years and owned every one of these memories.

As I age, I look back on those memories not with sadness for what had been, but joy for what simply was. It was a good perspective to take to bed this night.