This past weekend I had the utmost pleasure to reconnect with my close college friends at the wedding of my freshman roommate. As I get older, I’ve realized how precious these rendezvous are — they are the oxygen that propels long-lasting friendships and keeps them from withering away like a dying flame. So while I may have previously complained about a wedding that was in the middle of nowhere in a town without cell service, now I take pleasure in disconnecting from my current reality to be with those near and dear to my heart.
In the past, I’d lament all the wedding theatrics, like the welcome event, post-wedding brunch, and the ceremony itself. The small talk with fringe acquaintances, parents of friends, and the random cousins were definitely to be avoided at all costs. These days, however, I recognize how each moment spent with folks who care about you is truly a blessing. While the crux of a relationship between friends is often solidified by formative experiences at fleeting moments in life, returning to that state is a mere impossibility. Instead, breathing any amount of new lifeblood into a friendship calibrates new layers and nuances that ideally deepens our mutual appreciation for one another.
After college, the reality of life is a broad scattering of lives across the world as we each develop careers, find roots in new cities, create families, and evolve our identities. There is a distribution of wild success and abject pain. This can be quite scary — as an admitted nostalgic, it can be nerve-racking to harken for a friend to present their exact past self, but intimately know this can never be the case. That friend who was the life of the party is now mellowed out. That friend who you played basketball with for hours every day now has a bum knee. We are constantly evolving as people, which means our interests, worldview, and goals are as well.
So the question becomes, if we are a vestige of ourselves at one point in time, which was the initial spark and glue to a friendship, what is it that keeps us moving forward together? For me, it is knowing that my friends of yesterday still maintain the same core value set as they had in the past. It’s become more important to surround myself by people who wake up to be the best version of themselves in an honest manner, rather than by friends who will show me the best night out on the town. Rather than experiences acting as the bedrock of a friendship with core values as icing, this cupcake pyramid has been flipped on its head to be values-driven.
Weddings are the ultimate venue to take stock of relationships, especially as you are surrounded by guests from all walks of life, both young and old. At this particular wedding, the groom and bride’s parents were surrounded by friends and family they had built relationships with over many decades, and still seemed to be going strong. Some of the older folks who were in flailing health were particularly inspiring and emotional. Watching them belt out in glee with wide-eyed grins and cheers after the bride said “I Do” was a stark reminder that values-driven connection is the only way friendships can withstand the harsh test of time.
I feel quite lucky to have networks of friends who have seen me at my best and my worst. They know my inner strengths and weaknesses, but still accept me for who I am because of who I am. Large rendezvous are instructive opportunities to reminisce on past experiences and take stock of how far we’ve collectively come since then. I love discussing old stories from yesteryear, whether it was study abroad, a weekend road trip, or a random dinner. For some stories, the details may fuzz over time to those who were present, because they lose relevance in one’s mind if it is non-core to who we are today. But for others, their recollection is lucid because a particular experience resulted in a lesson or outcome that propelled a person forward. Restitching the past allows me to fully internalize who I was at a specific moment in time and reflect on how I would have acted if my present self were there.
Rather than approaching wedding get togethers as a mere jaunt to bring back the old days, by leaning in with intent we can reflect, learn, and improve our inner selves for the future. Cheers to many more reunions with the people we care most about in our lives.