 kmccarthy, Wed, June 20th, 2007 Laundry, dishes, lunches, supervising homework, and oh, yeah, a job, too...you know the parenting drill. But once in a while we get an excellent break from it all, like Chris' 25th college reunion in early June. For the first half of our married life, plus the couple of dating years, we lived in New York City, where my friends from college, some of Chris' friends from college and his friends from law school all lived. We felt like we had the world by the tail -- even on the days when New York had a tight, anxiety-provoking grip on us. We laughed, we sang, we danced, we drank, we went to dinner, we laughed some more ... we were lucky. So when we go to each other's college reunions, we know enough people that we never feel like Odd Spouse Out. This year, in particular, Chris' reunion felt warm and fuzzy. Twenty-five years is a long time - as everyone pointed out in their bios in the reunion books. The best part of Chris' reunion was a private dinner a small group of his friends had, plus spouses. Do a little math, and you'll realize that a 25th reunion is a celebration of 29 years of friendship. I fell in love with Chris for two big reasons: he's the smartest man in the world, and he's the funniest. When we're with his friends, I'm frequently gasping for breath from laughing so hard. In addition to being funny, his friends are scary smart, which gives me 10 seconds to take a breath sometimes - when they joke about deposed dictators from past centuries, I don't always get it. Everyone's seen some heartbreak, too; deceased parents and siblings; illnesses in their children; some health issues. So when Dave stood up to make a toast, wearing one of the lime green polyester jackets that they had found at a church bazaar and worn on a road trip to Florida, we all understood when he warned that toasts were hard because he cried easily. The weight of all those years of friendship, after all, is no laughing matter. The good news is that after the lump in the throat goes down, there's more room for the sound of joy to come out. blog comments powered by Disqus  |
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