Monday, July 14, 2008
My Friend's Wedding and My Penultimate Cube
So this weekend, one of my oldest friends got married. This event was not unexpected. I had, after all, received a special "save-the-date" magnet several months in advance. Nor can I claim that it was unprecedented, except in the sense that this specific friend had never been married before. (So far as we know.) But due to a conference-related scheduling conflict last November, I was unable to attend the first such wedding of a high school friend in West Virginia, so this was the first time I had actually been present for the ceremony.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. The bride's family lives outside of Philadelphia, so the event was within reasonable driving distance at a local arboretum. Fortunately, the unbearable humidity which characterized most of this month's weather finally broke, and the ceremony took place under sunny skies and generally non-sticky conditions. Consequently, the groom (occasionally referred to on this blog as "Sevensor") and his brother/best man ("Ramblin' Dave") were able to bear the burden of being tuxedoed in an outdoor venue with a minimum of discomfort. The ceremony was relatively small, with an audience of approximately 150, and everything went off without a hitch...except perhaps for a flower girl who was still unclear on her exact responsibilities.
Sitting with my girlfriend alongside other friends from junior high school, including the Sleeper (who came all the way from England with his girlfriend) and Mathman (who came all the way from Boston), I watched the happy couple take their vows. A strange mixture of thoughts percolated in the back of my brain throughout the process. First and foremost was a feeling of joy: the bride and groom seemed thoroughly happy with one another, almost unable to contain their beaming smiles during the ceremony. Then a sense of hope: hope that their happiness will last, hope that I will be continue to keep in touch with old friends, hope that my girlfriend would be able to tolerate stories about our junior high school escapades without falling asleep...hope for the future.
And then there was the nostalgia factor, mixed with a touch of pathos. Because let's face it, even in this age of Facebook and blogging, most people fail to keep in touch with their friends from high school. The world interferes. People go off to college across the country, reuniting briefly during academic breaks only to hurtle back to their own separate worlds soon after. Once graduation hits and people join "the real world", opportunities to reunite become rarer...most jobs don't have academic breaks and even those with regular vacations generally fail to overlap with those of one's friends. As visits with old friends become less routine, one develops a new social network---coworkers, perhaps, or locals who share extracurricular interests. Until eventually, the close-knit group of friends you once knew has been shattered into many smaller, disparate groups scattered geographically across the country, only coming together for major events like, well, a wedding.
Don't get me wrong it was great to see the old gang back together again. But I realized, as I watched my friend walk down the aisle with his new bride that such occasions were likely to only likely to get more rare. Maybe this concern was exacerbated by the unspoken fact that only two days later, I would be celebrating a birthday...I'm not certain. I tried to put such things out of my mind during the wedding, the best man's toast (complete with reference to socially optimal mapping), the happy couple's first dance (to the Beatles "When I'm 64"), or the traditional storming of the buffet line in search of cake.
But in the end, you can't ignore the changes in life. And while they can be a little sad, it is possible to enjoy them as they are occurring and realize that while you can't necessarily go home again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my friends again this weekend, even if only for a little while. Beyond all the in-jokes and high school references, this wedding gave me faith that even in the years to come, my friends and I will be able to keep in touch, something that I had doubted in the past. Maybe we'll only meet up at major events, but I'm willing to bet that something bigger could be organized. Plans are already in the works for next summer, regardless of anyone's engagement status...
Regular readers of this blog know that normally, I post something to commemorate my birthday here. I had hoped that I would be able to celebrate the occasion with my friends who were in town for the wedding, but such was not to be. Mathman took the train back to Boston yesterday, with Ramblin' Dave and his father driving north soon after. The Sleeper was in town, but since he's back in the States so rarely, he decided to go spend some time with family. And Sevensor and his wife are on their way to an exciting Croatian honeymoon. (I hear Dubrovnik is lovely this time of year.) So really, it's just me this time around. I'm 27 this year. Since I doubt that I'll last until 125, this is likely to be my penultimate cubic year.
Unlike previous years, when I've talked mostly about the past, today I look forward to the future. This year, I will have to start work on my dissertation and will be moving to a new apartment. It is entirely possible that this combination of factors will tend to isolate me further from my friends, both old and new. My hope, however, based on this past weekend, is that I will be able to make time to balance out my work with the family and friends that make that work worthwhile. Normally, at weddings, the guests are the ones presenting the gifts. But in this case, I think that seeing my friends this past weekend was an unintentional birthday gift of sorts...one that reminded me how lucky we all are to find people who appreciate us and how important it is to stay in touch.
And with that we wrap up this year's Bastille Day birthday post. Be sure to tune in next year, when I try to come up with something witty to say about the number 28.
So this weekend, one of my oldest friends got married. This event was not unexpected. I had, after all, received a special "save-the-date" magnet several months in advance. Nor can I claim that it was unprecedented, except in the sense that this specific friend had never been married before. (So far as we know.) But due to a conference-related scheduling conflict last November, I was unable to attend the first such wedding of a high school friend in West Virginia, so this was the first time I had actually been present for the ceremony.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. The bride's family lives outside of Philadelphia, so the event was within reasonable driving distance at a local arboretum. Fortunately, the unbearable humidity which characterized most of this month's weather finally broke, and the ceremony took place under sunny skies and generally non-sticky conditions. Consequently, the groom (occasionally referred to on this blog as "Sevensor") and his brother/best man ("Ramblin' Dave") were able to bear the burden of being tuxedoed in an outdoor venue with a minimum of discomfort. The ceremony was relatively small, with an audience of approximately 150, and everything went off without a hitch...except perhaps for a flower girl who was still unclear on her exact responsibilities.
Sitting with my girlfriend alongside other friends from junior high school, including the Sleeper (who came all the way from England with his girlfriend) and Mathman (who came all the way from Boston), I watched the happy couple take their vows. A strange mixture of thoughts percolated in the back of my brain throughout the process. First and foremost was a feeling of joy: the bride and groom seemed thoroughly happy with one another, almost unable to contain their beaming smiles during the ceremony. Then a sense of hope: hope that their happiness will last, hope that I will be continue to keep in touch with old friends, hope that my girlfriend would be able to tolerate stories about our junior high school escapades without falling asleep...hope for the future.
And then there was the nostalgia factor, mixed with a touch of pathos. Because let's face it, even in this age of Facebook and blogging, most people fail to keep in touch with their friends from high school. The world interferes. People go off to college across the country, reuniting briefly during academic breaks only to hurtle back to their own separate worlds soon after. Once graduation hits and people join "the real world", opportunities to reunite become rarer...most jobs don't have academic breaks and even those with regular vacations generally fail to overlap with those of one's friends. As visits with old friends become less routine, one develops a new social network---coworkers, perhaps, or locals who share extracurricular interests. Until eventually, the close-knit group of friends you once knew has been shattered into many smaller, disparate groups scattered geographically across the country, only coming together for major events like, well, a wedding.
Don't get me wrong it was great to see the old gang back together again. But I realized, as I watched my friend walk down the aisle with his new bride that such occasions were likely to only likely to get more rare. Maybe this concern was exacerbated by the unspoken fact that only two days later, I would be celebrating a birthday...I'm not certain. I tried to put such things out of my mind during the wedding, the best man's toast (complete with reference to socially optimal mapping), the happy couple's first dance (to the Beatles "When I'm 64"), or the traditional storming of the buffet line in search of cake.
But in the end, you can't ignore the changes in life. And while they can be a little sad, it is possible to enjoy them as they are occurring and realize that while you can't necessarily go home again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my friends again this weekend, even if only for a little while. Beyond all the in-jokes and high school references, this wedding gave me faith that even in the years to come, my friends and I will be able to keep in touch, something that I had doubted in the past. Maybe we'll only meet up at major events, but I'm willing to bet that something bigger could be organized. Plans are already in the works for next summer, regardless of anyone's engagement status...
Regular readers of this blog know that normally, I post something to commemorate my birthday here. I had hoped that I would be able to celebrate the occasion with my friends who were in town for the wedding, but such was not to be. Mathman took the train back to Boston yesterday, with Ramblin' Dave and his father driving north soon after. The Sleeper was in town, but since he's back in the States so rarely, he decided to go spend some time with family. And Sevensor and his wife are on their way to an exciting Croatian honeymoon. (I hear Dubrovnik is lovely this time of year.) So really, it's just me this time around. I'm 27 this year. Since I doubt that I'll last until 125, this is likely to be my penultimate cubic year.
Unlike previous years, when I've talked mostly about the past, today I look forward to the future. This year, I will have to start work on my dissertation and will be moving to a new apartment. It is entirely possible that this combination of factors will tend to isolate me further from my friends, both old and new. My hope, however, based on this past weekend, is that I will be able to make time to balance out my work with the family and friends that make that work worthwhile. Normally, at weddings, the guests are the ones presenting the gifts. But in this case, I think that seeing my friends this past weekend was an unintentional birthday gift of sorts...one that reminded me how lucky we all are to find people who appreciate us and how important it is to stay in touch.
And with that we wrap up this year's Bastille Day birthday post. Be sure to tune in next year, when I try to come up with something witty to say about the number 28.
Comments:
Happy Birthstille Day!
Thanks for clearing up my below 'who's getting married?' query
Thanks for clearing up my below 'who's getting married?' query
# posted by 
: 8:17 AM
: 8:17 AM
Happy Birthday, man. Would have wished it on the day but, as you noted, things were complicated.
And wow, the White One is real!
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And wow, the White One is real!
