Last Wednesday, Mer and I were happy to get together and visit with our good friend Julie. Julie went to CVCA with Meredith (back in the day), and later worked there. Julie is a ton of fun to hang around (she is funny and energetic and bright), so Mer and I hung out with Julie a lot. Until Julie was rude enough to take a job in California! She is in her third school year there now, and we miss her. So, it is always much fun to get back together. Julie was in for the Christmas break, and she was able to squeeze us in her schedule for an evening.

We did not do anything too spectacular – we went to Friday’s (where I ate too much) and then came back to the house and hung out and talked until sometime around midnight. We talked largely about school (especially English classes, since Mer and Julie are both English teachers). It should be sad that we were all talking about work, but we still laughed much of the time, and we talked about literature (especially Huck Finn, one of my favorite books) at length, so it was not so dry as it might seem.

Julie is doing well, and she looks happy and healthy. We’d love for her to come back, but that does not seem to be in the cards, which is okay since Julie is happy.

I generally don’t notice getting older – the few aches I have I write off to exercising too hard. The one place I really notice the passage of time is in leaving friends. Mer and I have moved away from friends and family or had friends move away from us, and that is hard. It is difficult to stay in close contact with friends when you (or they) move away. There are people we miss very much in Maine and in Chicago, and there are CVCA and other Ohio friends who have moved away, and we miss them. That is (for me) one of the hardest things about getting older – life moves you on and away from people.

That can be hard on a twenty-year-old!

At any rate, I’m delighted that Julie made the effort to catch up with us again.