A week from today will be a reunion of friends from my hometown who have since transplanted to Utah. The bulk of these friends were all in high school at one point or another together over the years. We once were all in the same LDS ward growing up. When we were in college we'd have reunions like this about once a year. Then life happened and we all moved on.
The thing is, I was notified about this reunion by a former friend who hasn't really spoken to me in 16 years. The last time we saw each other was at our 20th class reunion in my hometown and I was hardly worth a "hello" from her. She was still mad at me, from 10 years previous. Well, that was 6 years ago now and, to be honest, I am really hesitating to want to go next week, because of her. Even if she is the one who "invited" me.
There ARE other friends who I'd like to see and visit with from this friend group--mostly from church growing up. But I'm not sure if wanting to see them trumps NOT wanting to get chewed out again by her. This weighing of wishes is painful work.
Truth be told, my LDS friends in high school--stretching across many graduating years--would be the best kind of reunion. I think I am fairly done with my own high school class reunions, even though I was pretty excited about the first one. They just have all been disappointing. But the LDS friends I had growing up are really the people that influenced me as friends and encouraged me to become better. I care abotu them because we have had so many shared experiences and values and goals.
So, the worry is this: I show up at this reunions of transplants and walk into a confrontation and rehashing of an issue 16 years old. Those who I'd REALLY most like to see don't come for the reunion. And I waste a perfectly good birthday dinner night--yes, it is on my birthday.
Maybe I should adopt Genius Golfer's theory that less is more, when it comes to friends. It saves in the heartache department.
Showing posts with label reunions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reunions. Show all posts
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Friday, December 28, 2012
Old Friends Are The Best
This week our good friends from Portland were in town to visit family for the holidays. Genius Golfer and Jordan have been friends since high school, back in the day, and since Jordan married Jen, we have counted her among our oldest and dearest friends too.
It was so good to see them, to catch up and to reminisce a bit. Jen missed out on much of our single-life shenanigans, but she is a good sport and doesn't seem to mind when the three of us stroll down memory lane together.
This time of year we seem to have more than the usual share of old friend get-togethers. The first Saturday of each December we meet up with a group from my last singles' ward--who have since married and have a Christmas party at Bill and Lori's place. This was the 21st year of doing that. I don't think GG and I have missed once. Those are good friends. We have withstood divorces, deaths of spouses, infertility issues, and health scares together. When we first started meeting for Christmas, the first married couple were newlyweds, and those of us who were a little slower, were playing catch up. The conversations topics generally covered finishing school, finding an apartment, getting to know you in-laws, and curiosity about marriage that, as good friends, we could ask. The years rolled on and soon we were talking about maternity insurance, colic remedies, family planning, and career planning. Later, we've had to cover life insurance, custody and attorney fees as well as discipline for teenagers, kids learning to drive, college planning and even (gasp) retirement planning.
This is a tight knit little group of dear friends. Twenty plus years together can make that happen, even when we only see each other in person a couple of times a year.
Luckily, the other regular time we see this group is on New Year's Eve for an early-bird dinner and more catching up and well wishing and "let's do this more often".
GG and I are certainly blessed to have such good, steady, in-for-the-long-haul friends. Plus it is nice to hear other people validate the memories I have of the dumb stuff we used to do.
It was so good to see them, to catch up and to reminisce a bit. Jen missed out on much of our single-life shenanigans, but she is a good sport and doesn't seem to mind when the three of us stroll down memory lane together.
This time of year we seem to have more than the usual share of old friend get-togethers. The first Saturday of each December we meet up with a group from my last singles' ward--who have since married and have a Christmas party at Bill and Lori's place. This was the 21st year of doing that. I don't think GG and I have missed once. Those are good friends. We have withstood divorces, deaths of spouses, infertility issues, and health scares together. When we first started meeting for Christmas, the first married couple were newlyweds, and those of us who were a little slower, were playing catch up. The conversations topics generally covered finishing school, finding an apartment, getting to know you in-laws, and curiosity about marriage that, as good friends, we could ask. The years rolled on and soon we were talking about maternity insurance, colic remedies, family planning, and career planning. Later, we've had to cover life insurance, custody and attorney fees as well as discipline for teenagers, kids learning to drive, college planning and even (gasp) retirement planning.
This is a tight knit little group of dear friends. Twenty plus years together can make that happen, even when we only see each other in person a couple of times a year.
Luckily, the other regular time we see this group is on New Year's Eve for an early-bird dinner and more catching up and well wishing and "let's do this more often".
GG and I are certainly blessed to have such good, steady, in-for-the-long-haul friends. Plus it is nice to hear other people validate the memories I have of the dumb stuff we used to do.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Reunion Season Is Here
I am very happy (happier than you could possibly know) that this is NOT my family. Though it does have a bit of "from Finnish ancestry" look about them. But it must be someone's family. And that is sad. But funny too. I know I shouldn't laugh, but it is hard not to laugh when I look at this one.
My Uncle and Aunt called this past weekend and invited us to Idaho one weekend in August to come visit and BBQ and catch up with their family. Their daughters who live back East will be out and I can't even recall the last time I saw them all. It might have been my grandpa's funeral, and that was 1991. It has been a good long time, not matter.
So far it is looking good that we can make it, but we are waiting to see what The Boy's football schedule will bring. The fact that they have started working out together as a team already--for the whole of summer--makes me think they will have to do something. And somehow football coaches have the ability to really put fear into the hearts of their players like nothing else I have known (or tried, for that matter).
If we do make it, I'm sure we'll be taking pictures together. And I promise NONE will look like this one.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Like a Boomarang, back again
I received an email yesterday, by way of my HS class reunion message board. A former friend with whom I haven't spoken to for many years , save only a few pleasantries at my 20th reunion last summer, was reporting to the group that she was going to be grandmother at age 40! Her 19 year old daughter was expecting.
This same friend and I were inseparable from the time we were about 12. We went to junior and high schools together, attached at the hip. We spent five years at Girls' Camp. We nearly lived at each other's homes. We even came to BYU together as freshmen but, thinking with more maturity than we actually had a the time, chose not to room together that first year. In fact, we didn't even choose the same dorms. That first year of college was life shaping. And we each took radically different paths. But because we loved each other better than sisters, we stayed close.
Fast forward to our 10 Year Reunion. Knowing some changes were happening in her life, I expressed that I felt she was making a huge mistake at the time that didn't reflect the testimony I knew she had of the Gospel. Some of the choices she was making by that time were in total opposition to the commandments of God, as I understood them. So I told her I thought she was making a mistake. I told her, not to condemn her, but to help her see how she could be happier. Or so was my intention.
That very weekend she cut me out of her life and out of her kids' lives. She told me that I had no business interfering and telling her what to do. She left my parent's home never to speak to me again for ten years. It was devastating to me. I felt like part of me had been amputated.
About that same time I was dealing with some serious post-partum depression, after the birth of The Boy, and was fairly whacked out, generally. But her emotional hurt was almost more than I could take. It took many years to come to the realization that while I told her the truth, she wasn't ready to hear it and maybe I should have kept it to myself, but that didn't change the fact that it was true.
So, out of the blue, I get this list message that she is to be a grandma, just like her mom was when her own daughter was born. And I feel a little stunned. How else should I feel? I still believe that her life would be dramatically different had she stayed close to the Lord and the Gospel. But she chose otherwise. She has exercised a lot of options that I would not choose. Do I still love this friend? Of course. But it breaks my heart to know what she could have and what she has alternatively chosen for herself and her kids. And hearing from her, even if not directly, still feels like a punch to the stomach.
At our reunion last summer, she seemed happy, but was that just the outward appearance? Her new husband seemed very nice, but it was a reunion--what is he supposed to do? She spoke to me only long enough to introduce her husband to me and say hello. We took a picture with two other dear friends and that was it for the night. It felt like another emotional blow, like the previous reunion had been.
I guess some friendships, regardless of the time spent together, are good only for the time they lasted. Others, I am happy to report, have outlasted their seeming usefulness. Regardless of the duration, however, these relationships have to have a base of common interest and values, shared ideals and goals. Otherwise, it appears, the benefit is almost not worth the time to develop them.
I learned a lot from this friend and I had hoped that she had, in turn, learned a lot from me. I wish her well in her choices in life. And what I learned from her has turned into a series of life lessons, I suppose. I only hope that what she may have learned from me will occasionally come out and touch her heart, and remind her of someone who loved her once--a long, long time ago.
This same friend and I were inseparable from the time we were about 12. We went to junior and high schools together, attached at the hip. We spent five years at Girls' Camp. We nearly lived at each other's homes. We even came to BYU together as freshmen but, thinking with more maturity than we actually had a the time, chose not to room together that first year. In fact, we didn't even choose the same dorms. That first year of college was life shaping. And we each took radically different paths. But because we loved each other better than sisters, we stayed close.
Fast forward to our 10 Year Reunion. Knowing some changes were happening in her life, I expressed that I felt she was making a huge mistake at the time that didn't reflect the testimony I knew she had of the Gospel. Some of the choices she was making by that time were in total opposition to the commandments of God, as I understood them. So I told her I thought she was making a mistake. I told her, not to condemn her, but to help her see how she could be happier. Or so was my intention.
That very weekend she cut me out of her life and out of her kids' lives. She told me that I had no business interfering and telling her what to do. She left my parent's home never to speak to me again for ten years. It was devastating to me. I felt like part of me had been amputated.
About that same time I was dealing with some serious post-partum depression, after the birth of The Boy, and was fairly whacked out, generally. But her emotional hurt was almost more than I could take. It took many years to come to the realization that while I told her the truth, she wasn't ready to hear it and maybe I should have kept it to myself, but that didn't change the fact that it was true.
So, out of the blue, I get this list message that she is to be a grandma, just like her mom was when her own daughter was born. And I feel a little stunned. How else should I feel? I still believe that her life would be dramatically different had she stayed close to the Lord and the Gospel. But she chose otherwise. She has exercised a lot of options that I would not choose. Do I still love this friend? Of course. But it breaks my heart to know what she could have and what she has alternatively chosen for herself and her kids. And hearing from her, even if not directly, still feels like a punch to the stomach.
At our reunion last summer, she seemed happy, but was that just the outward appearance? Her new husband seemed very nice, but it was a reunion--what is he supposed to do? She spoke to me only long enough to introduce her husband to me and say hello. We took a picture with two other dear friends and that was it for the night. It felt like another emotional blow, like the previous reunion had been.
I guess some friendships, regardless of the time spent together, are good only for the time they lasted. Others, I am happy to report, have outlasted their seeming usefulness. Regardless of the duration, however, these relationships have to have a base of common interest and values, shared ideals and goals. Otherwise, it appears, the benefit is almost not worth the time to develop them.
I learned a lot from this friend and I had hoped that she had, in turn, learned a lot from me. I wish her well in her choices in life. And what I learned from her has turned into a series of life lessons, I suppose. I only hope that what she may have learned from me will occasionally come out and touch her heart, and remind her of someone who loved her once--a long, long time ago.
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