Braggadocious

There's something about nights like last night that you can't put into words. But seeing as I can't draw a picture for shit I figure I might as well try.

Last night was something I would consider a rare occurrence. Two circles of my friends crossed and, even if only for a moment, it was amazing and surreal.

There was a night back in college (nearly five years ago now, and coincidentally the night I started blogging) that the WRSU News team went out for dinner and ended up back at my apartment for drinks. There were about a half dozen of us, just hanging out and shooting the breeze. I was sitting by the window when the door to the apartment flew open and in walked Crago. He took two steps into the apartment, looked up, and froze. Then, much to my chagrin, he croaked out, "Chris...you know...people?" Before saying hello to everyone and heading back to his room. Later that night , while standing in the kitchen, he said to me "I've heard you talk about your friends from the radio station but I never actually thought they were, you know, real." It was such an odd event, something that didn't happen very often. Two separate circles of my friends crossing...even if for just a moment.

Then, some months later, there was a BBQ at my mother's house. Some Antioch people were there, some WRSU people were there, some SCRU people were there and my friends from high school and college as well. It was a good day, a great day even. At one point a small group found themselves playing wiffle ball in the backyard, at another point we threw little bits of ostrich meat to a small fox that had wandered in near the grill. The pictures from that day are long since lost but if I could find them now they'd show Brian from SCRU swinging at a pitch thrown by this guy Tim I went to kindergarten with or Julie and Matt from WRSU talking to my kid brother while sitting on a swing set my stepfather built while we were still in grade school or Crago sitting with Nick and Forti swapping reflections from our last trip to Canada...and the list goes on. Separate circles crossing somewhere in the depths of space and time.

So last night while Jere and Nate and House sat in the front row of a big yellow school bus that I just so happen to own, Mr. and Mrs.K sitting with Michelle not far behind them, Adge, Collette, Kevin, Jacqueline, Alyssa and the rest of the lot behind me I smiled with pride, nearly bursting at the seams, simply wanting to shout out, "Look! These are my friends!" And even if only for a moment, I felt like a little kid, immensely pleased with something I really had nothing to do with at all.

Nate and House headed home when we got off the bus. Jere came up to the diner with the some of the rest of the group. And we all sat there and told stories, and laughed at things entirely too inappropriate for a church group to be laughing at. And later, when I dropped Michelle and then Kevin off, Jere came back to my house to get his car and we stood in the cold dark driveway for a moment just to talk. I don't remember all of what was said, we were both exhausted and it probably wasn't that important anyway. But I do remember saying, with a smile on my face and a lot of love in my heart, "How great are those kids?" And laughing because I feel blessed to know that I could have said that two years ago or ten years ago or a dozen years ago when we were those very kids ourselves and it would have been every bit as true.

Ha, me...blessed...who'da thunk such a thing?