What Do Stars Do?

I was out of town last weekend. I'd like to say that was a contributing factor to the blogging hiatus, but that's not really true. I just prefer not to write about relationship-oriented sadness...and during that two weeks, there was kind of a lot of that. I think I'm largely on the other side of it now...and look! My words are back.

...but all that was digression. The point is that I was out of town last weekend. I took a trip westward (and back in time) to spend the weekend visiting friends from college and their respective spouses and families. I hadn't been back to this particular part of the midwest in a solid decade...and were it not for the incredible people I was going to visit, I wouldn't have gone back at all. Though I spent seven years of my life there, that place was never really "home" to me.

I've been trying for a week to put words around the overwhelming feeling of comfort that comes from spending time with old friends. Or maybe its actually just some old friends. Certainly, there are people from my past with whom neither I nor they might choose friendship if we were meeting today for the first time. Unfortunately, aside from our history, it feels as though we have very little in common on which to base a relationship.

But then there are the others...the ones where we still have much in common....the friendships we can be (effectively) absent from for a decade or more and settle back into with ease in the first five minutes. I described it to Aha once as something like a root system: you may not be able to see it, but you know without question that it's always there...under the surface...waiting for a little beam of light so it can bloom. These are the friendships for which time is irrelevant. Ten years? Ten months? Ten minutes? Those are nothing more than arbitrary measurements that have no real meaning in the context of the relationship.

Last weekend was saturated with those rooted, timeless friendships and the amazing sense of happiness that comes from spending time with people who knew and appreciated me back when I was on the road to becoming who I am....and who know and appreciate me now, while I'm on the road to being who I will become. I only wish I had better words to express my gratitude and appreciation.

After I got home, I was asked to sum up the weekend in a word or two...and surprisingly, given my bent toward being a bit verbose, it wasn't that difficult...

I glowed.