It doesn't seem like a week ago I was reuniting with college friends. The days have flown by, chained together with the mundane tasks of workaday grown-up life: minding the children, tidying the house, laundry, paying various and sundry bills, whatever volunteer work needing to be done at school, I taught the 7th & 8th graders for a day this week.
And in many ways my silence here has been my way of savoring those brief hours with far-flung friends. Friday night we regrouped at one of the two hotels in Charleston and poured over old photos, talking about old times and catching up, laughing a lot. Figuring we'd be a might bit too noisy for other hotel patrons we adjourned to a local establishment for dinner and beverages. We traipsed up and down 4th street from Roc's to Friend's and back again, once we found out that Friend's (our no. 2 hang-out back in the day) was due to undergo renovations and the patrons (and bathrooms) were a little frightening. We did mosey back to the old part of the bar, where we used to hang, and took some pictures. The place looked, and bizarrely smelled, exactly the same. Friend's has an adjoining space with a stage where local bands, that some of our friends were in, used to play. The graffiti on the wall from those days is still intact and brought back tons of occasionally hazy memories.
My friends and I learned a valuable lesson that night: we are no longer 20 and really can't stay up until 3 a.m. and not pay a hefty price the next day. I was hung over for the first time in my life. Yep. I never had a hang over in college. Never. And, boy, could I drink, drink, drink back then. But I powered through the day, happy to suffer through a little dehydration, headache and some vomiting in order to spend time with some of my very favorite people in the world.
The people I came to know in my years at EIU are some of the most talented, creative, smart, funny, caring, and amazing individuals I know. I'm so thankful to be able to call them my friends. My life is blessed.
So it's taken me about a week to come down off that high.
But at least we're connected through Facebook and are already making plans for October.
And in many ways my silence here has been my way of savoring those brief hours with far-flung friends. Friday night we regrouped at one of the two hotels in Charleston and poured over old photos, talking about old times and catching up, laughing a lot. Figuring we'd be a might bit too noisy for other hotel patrons we adjourned to a local establishment for dinner and beverages. We traipsed up and down 4th street from Roc's to Friend's and back again, once we found out that Friend's (our no. 2 hang-out back in the day) was due to undergo renovations and the patrons (and bathrooms) were a little frightening. We did mosey back to the old part of the bar, where we used to hang, and took some pictures. The place looked, and bizarrely smelled, exactly the same. Friend's has an adjoining space with a stage where local bands, that some of our friends were in, used to play. The graffiti on the wall from those days is still intact and brought back tons of occasionally hazy memories.
My friends and I learned a valuable lesson that night: we are no longer 20 and really can't stay up until 3 a.m. and not pay a hefty price the next day. I was hung over for the first time in my life. Yep. I never had a hang over in college. Never. And, boy, could I drink, drink, drink back then. But I powered through the day, happy to suffer through a little dehydration, headache and some vomiting in order to spend time with some of my very favorite people in the world.
The people I came to know in my years at EIU are some of the most talented, creative, smart, funny, caring, and amazing individuals I know. I'm so thankful to be able to call them my friends. My life is blessed.
So it's taken me about a week to come down off that high.
But at least we're connected through Facebook and are already making plans for October.
2 comments:
Hi,
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