Fun!

So last year, and I'm not even really sure when last year, because I was just looking for the post where I blogged about it, and I must not have blogged about it, because I can't find it, but I KNOW I blogged about it because why WOULDN'T I have blogged about it, which means I'm just not looking in the right place, because, you know, I'm not really sure when last year it was, I met up with my old friend Brenda from the neighborhood I grew up in. It had been 30 years pretty much, because we weren't really friends once high school hit, and it was fabulous fun. I also saw her little brother Darby briefly that evening, and then the two of us went to dinner and caught up, as much as you can catch up 30 years in one sitting. She holds a very interesting position in a governmental agency that shall remain nameless, and so she lives on the east coast. Darby still lives here, and he's pretty much all the family they have left, so every year he goes out there and she comes out here.

This week she is here. So (through the magic of social networking sites with which I am sure you are all familiar) over this past year we both also virtually reunited with another person from the block, and this time around we decided to meet up with her too. Thursday night the plan was for me, Brenda, Darb and Claudia to meet at a restaurant and catch up and have some fun. I decided to add Tom to the mix because after all he grew up on the same street, and since he isn't on any social networking sites this would be a complete and total trip for him. And plus I didn't tell anyone he was coming and everyone likes a surprise. Right?

So anyway there we all were and it was great fun and surprising and stupid and some people got drunk-ish and some didn't and we took a bunch of pictures and Claudia actually brought one picture from WAY back in the day and it was just stupid fun and loud and raucous.

But it just sort of gets you thinking (or me) about how when you're 8, or 10, or 14, how you don't have any idea of what you're going to be like when you're 44, you just ARE, you just play games like Guy in the Middle, or Sidewalk Tag, or wiffle ball in the back yard or whatever, and you get in fights and then they go away and then you get older and older and the fights last longer and you start developing personality traits and opinions and pretty soon you are this adult, and a whole bunch of time passes, and you've done all this stuff, and accomplished all these goals (or not) and you are this person that has formed as a result of your life experiences and then one night, for like four hours, you all sit down at a table and kind of look at each other and try to see that 8 year old in that face and talk about stuff that happened and maybe briefly try to paint a picture of why you are what and who you are and then, in the end, you're back to being that group of kids riding bikes and playing in the orchard and throwing dirt clods at each other and water balloons from the deck over the Johnstons' house at the berry picking bus when it drops kids off on Lombard.

And then the check comes and you are kind of thankful that you're not that kid anymore because that kid only got a dime on Saturdays and there's no way you could have afforded that bar bill.