My daughter amazes me...

There is no love so sweet as my daughter Natalie's. I just spoke with her on the phone. She is so big! She speaks like someone much older. I love you.

C'est fini.

The reunion is over but I will still be seeing a few more folks today before I head back to Virginia Beach. Yes, I really tried to sleep in, again, but I couldn't even though I didn't go to bed until about 3am. It's a small comfort to know that even given the opportunity to sleep in I am unable to; my body just doesn't run on that clock anymore.

I am a bit tired but I feel the need to be reflective before that window of raw emotion passes. As I write this, I am a little sad at the thought of all of us, my high school friends that I've been meeting up with again all weekend, now returning to our normal lives. For a few hours we were hanging out (putt-putt, Bennigans) and chatting (so many funny stories!) and for a moment you could almost imagine that we still lived near one another. It amazes me that even though ten years have past and we have all taken our lives in so many different directions (I have so many smart friends too, by the way! And compassionate...working with refugees and non profits, doing enviromental work, missionary work, serving in the army and recently deployed to Iraq, etc.) yet, we fell right back into great conversation and I felt all weekend like we genuinely cared for one another. Don't worry, Liz, I still admire you even though you claim to have sold your soul to corporate america. (You didn't, btw.) I'm just suprised that you were able to hug a shark given that you felt the status of your soul was well, shall we say, in doubt?

I'd like to say that the actual reunion itself was magical, but it wasn't really. I did enjoy meeting up with my closest friends though and putting to rest the commonly held belief that these friendships couldn't be as meaningful as those since high school, simply because we were just teenagers. It's hard because I really had made my peace with never seeing some of these people again, but that whole process starts over now.

I'll miss you Robyn, Sarah, Liz, Polly, Jonathan, Jody, Matt W., Matt Stubbs... Please take good care of yourself and your families. We can't ever go back to high school, but we can come home again.

Going Home Again

I took a very long trip to see some very old friends this weekend. It is my 10 year high school reunion and I am not quite sure how I feel about it at the moment.

I was really excited about the opportunity to get away for a while and I was treating the reunion like a vacation. I thought about the days I would have to myself to just hang out and have good conversation. The actual reunion isn't until tonight, but I want to capture how I feel now because later tonight after the main event is over, I'm not sure I will feel the same way.

So far, I have met up with three of my oldest friends and two other good friends from high school and one other friend that I wasn't terribly close with but he was friends with just about everyone and so darn nice, it was great to see him too. As expected, all of our lives have scattered in so many different directions...two, Jody and Polly, have stayed in Arlington and Sarah now lives in New Orleans, Robyn in Australia, Matt W. in Kentucky, and Matt S. lived in NYC for four years and is now moving to Seattle. I, of course, live in Florida. See, I told you were were far flug!

We spent the day seeing The Wedding Crashers, a movie I would have never chosen to see on my own but was actually really really funny. Sarah is in the movie business now and worked with some of the people who made that movie so that was the motivation to go. We then went out for Thai food at a nice restaurant at the Courthouse plaza which is very upscale compared to when we were high school kids. I had the best veggie spring rolls and number 73, but I couldn't tell you what it was!

We then came back to my house and chatted it up until about 1 am. We're not as young as we used to be and started to fade like little old men and little old ladies.

I just got a call from another old old friend and we're meeting up for breakfast. I didn't get to do much reflecting as I wanted but I've got some of the basic information down at least. I'm off to eat pancakes now and play some mini-golf.

Fallen Marine

A Touching Photo

Watch the slide show....

August 4-11, 2005