“Great!” my friend Wayne replied. “I’ve got my calendar right here, what day works for you?”
Hmm, while I LOVE Wayne and certainly DID want to have dinner with him, I wasn’t prepared for such immediate action. Isn’t it kind of like when you ask someone how they are, but you don’t really expect them to give you a litany of their ailments?
But I LOVED it!
This exchange occurred at a holiday party in early January, and even though we had to adjust the date once, we did make it happen last night. It was truly an enjoyable evening.
Wayne and I’ve been friends since 1984.
Since then we’ve been involved in many activities together, Pastoral Council, folk group, community theater, travel and more. We have created half a life time of wonderful memories (a wrong turn at the Vatican causing us to miss the Pope, a rickety van in St. Marten, and endless sheet rocking at the Ridgefield Theater Barn are just a few moments that come to mind)
But as life changes, that has shifted, and though we still socialize a handful of times a year, it is always in a group setting along with many friends. While we certainly share lots of laughs at those gatherings, it’s not the more intimate one on one conversation like we were able to have last night.
In fact, on the way home I realized that it may even be as far back as college that we had hours for just the two of us to chat (all those drives home from college together!).
As we said goodbye last night, I thanked him for pulling his calendar right out and making it happen. It’s something I had thought about while I was recovering from surgery this fall. Something I needed to have more of in my life. Just making it happen when it comes to what matters, like old friends.