Friends - Somewhere in Time

It was a great evening. The kind that’s full of laughs, camaraderie and enough drink that it strains your memory to recall firm details of exactly why it was so much fun.   Invariably, the answer is the people you surrounded yourself with on that night.

                It shouldn’t have mattered, a night out in the grand scheme of things, meant to be enjoyed but ultimately forgotten. Beers arrived, making everyone’s smile a little bit brighter. Food soon filled the table, and as it often does caused the conversation to lull if only a bit, as friend’s stomachs were filled.

As plates were cleared we all got to talking once more. The guys, joking about feces, the women feigning how gross it all was, though laughing hysterically all the same. The conversations were akin to those that went on at any fifth grade cafeteria table.

I realized that even though I hadn’t known anyone at the table for more than two years, we hadn’t grown up at all. That myth of maturing as you get older, ends up only becoming graduating to paying bills and acting responsible, waiting for the nights, like this one, where you can cut lose a bit, take of the starched shirt and restrictive tie of adulthood and relax. 

The lineup was a small one, but as you get older you learn that quality of friends beats quantity every time. There was me the resident loud mouth, my girl Laura, the very definition of a caring human being. At the table was also; Jackson, who was precisely 3/10 a doctor, his girlfriend Danica whose was raising her son properly in the vein of Batman lore. Lastly, Vanessa whose crimes against humanity included posting, reposting, and liking everything she’d ever seen on Facebook. On the surface, not a group you’d see having much in common. However, much to even our dismay we had the innate ability to laugh at damn near anything (including each other) together.

Not to mention, for the vast majority of us seated at the table, none of us had ever planned to be anywhere near the Old Pueblo in our lifetimes. But it’s as I always say, Better lucky than good. For we never said it aloud, so as not to jinx the magic. But we all knew we had been smiled upon by chance, or at least I did.

Again, a night of friendship and dining, like most others, nothing more was planned. It became something more only when the booth behind us was filled in by another group of five friends.

 

The new crowd, younger in most cases by a solid dozen years, sat down with a spark in their eyes that we ourselves had not lost but no longer were capable of carrying at all times. They seemed different then us, alien, but talked about all the same things, though without experience on their side.

Without ignoring my friends, I began subtly eavesdropping. Stories about school, work and other goings on dominated their conversations as it did our own. Yet there was a decidedly different undertone to it all.

Their laughter eventually overpowering our own, I tried to decide why. Was it just a matter of them being more boisterous? More confident?

I couldn’t tell so I turned to sneak a peek, maybe assist in solving my little mystery. The server brought a grandiose beer that was as tall as a yard stick to their table. The group cheered in unison. That would always serve to lubricate one’s sense of humor.

It was at this point that those I was sitting with began to take notice of the young pups behind us as well. The revelry must’ve sounded eerily familiar to my friend’s ears as it had my own.

As I was still listening to those at the table behind me, I began to piece together who these people were through scraps of dialogue. To aid this task, I would sneak a peek at them every so often, trying to match faces to voices, voices to dialogue…

They too had their happy couple holding hands, the guy that was too loud, the smart one, the caring one. Yet, somehow, something was missing. I struggled for a definitive answer that seemed to barely elude me.

A couple of my friends began giggling and trading hushed comments. “Oh my God- it’s like us fifteen years ago!” Followed by a hearty, “Quick somebody tell them not to get married!” I smiled but was amused by my riddle, so I kept an ear out for more clues.

Being the gregarious fellow that I am, I struck up a conversation with the guy closest to me. “Now you all have got to tell me just what exactly that is, and how much it cost so I can get one of my very own?”

Respectfully, their affable representative who was loud on a scale similar to that of my twenty-two year old self informed me, “Why this is a 120 ounce Dos Equis. And you could make one yours for the low, low price of seven bucks!”  

“Heck of a deal my friend thanks. You all look like you’re out celebrating. What’s the occasion, if you don’t mind?”

“Well my best friend here and this beautiful lady are getting’ hitched!” He pointed to the couple and smiled.

Everyone, my table included, raised their glasses. In near unison, those on my side cried out, “Congratulations!”

From behind me, one of my friends joked, “I knew they were getting married! You can see it in their eyes.”

I turned and quipped, “Ya no disillusion at all.”

The conversation didn’t last much longer than that, and we let the strangers continue on in their merriment.

Still, to myself, as the night went on, I wondered what was the difference? Did these relative youngsters seem so much more alive? Were they really full of more spirit and vigor? In the end I didn’t think so, I couldn’t think so.

What I did I intuit, was that this younger group was likely thus far unharmed by the bigger roadblocks of life. None had yet known the devastation of divorce. The words “laid off” were only said to them in passing as a child, at worse probably due to an ill-fated Uncle, or a relative even further from their immediate home. They hadn’t been nearly overwhelmed, but mostly overjoyed by the perils and pleasures of being a single parent. They had yet to plot their life’s course only to have it blown off track, (even if ever so slightly) by destiny or doom- or both.

We, on the other hand, were experienced. Hardy, but not hardened. You see when I really got to thinking about it; their laughter hadn’t been all that brassy or more precocious. It was just the way I heard it: as an older man who has known that life fights dirty, and pulls punches often…trained to listen for the negative, even when perhaps it wasn’t there.

It wasn’t just the younger ones laughter I had misheard. It was our own, for it hadn’t been lacking and weak. How could it have been? We were the seasoned ones.

On the contrary, it had been full of fight, maybe even a hint of arrogance. Because after everything life had thrown at us, every attempt that had been made to scatter the pieces of our existence, we were still standing, still safe. Now surrounded by people we cared about, and those that cared about us.

We were friends, laughing in the face of life together.