David Vance SubstackRead More
It’s 1982 and a group of young men, me included, are photographed all in merry form. We had all just either graduated OR were about to graduate. Life was all ahead of us and our enthusiasm for life was only matched by our collective innocence about most things! We thought we knew everything with the swagger young people do but in truth we knew practically nothing.
Fast Forward 46 years and on Friday night, the core people in that group got together for a meal and a few drinks. (For “few” read copious) I organised it, made sure everyone would be fine with it , and it turned out really well.
Even though DECADES had passed since all four of us had been together in the same space, it felt like 1982 again as we laughed, reminisced and enjoyed each other’s company. I could not have been happier that I had pulled this together and we promised we will definitely get together before the next 44 years passes! Joke – we will meet again this Autumn and I want to keep the contact going.
You see we went through our formative years together.
First foreign holiday together? Yes, Greece in 1980.
Shared Student digs? Yes.
Then we got married, had families, moved apart.
And yes, we don’t look like we did then but who does? Age does change us outside but so much of what we liked about each other then remains and is the same.
The way I see it, in ‘82 life was all ahead. Now we are husbands, dads, granddads.
We have all the experience now that life provided.
One of the things that I noticed was fragmented memories. I could remember some things that we had done but not in the entirely. It was the same for the others. But one we combined all our memories, it was amazing, the pictures got completed.
Now, I had met the others individually over the years to varying degrees but this was the group back together again. And it felt right.
One lesson I can offer you all is to make sure that you act when you can and keep friendship alive. There will come a time when that is no longer possible.
Carpe diem.
