For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls

And so it begins.  This weekend I attended the wedding of two high school friends, the first of my life.  What a strange experience, mingling with friends, many of whom I hadn't seen since Christmas break my first year in college, when we all thought we could stay in touch.  We were able to pick up where we left off, laughing and taking pictures while we avoided the dance floor.

No one seemed sure of where they would end up, which comforted the paranoid part of me that worries I'm the only post-grad without plans.  But there was another part of me that was sort of hoping we'd all be here together.  Selfish, I'll admit, to expect to be able to leave for four years and come back to a waiting crowd.  But it is hard to come to terms with knowing that each meeting with someone you saw everyday could be the last.

The next wedding could be as close as six months away, and I can't help but think this is another stage of life I'm not ready to meet: that phase when we stop just being friends, and are instead divided into single friends and married friends.  Now the distinction bears very little pressure, as we singles are in the majority.  But I fear that soon our numbers will shrink, leaving the final few of us in the same position we were in oh so many years ago in gym, hoping against hope we won't be last picked.