reacquainted

On Saturday Ally and I went to a wedding. It was the wedding of Becky Slayton.

I met Becky in the dorms freshman year of college. I was in a relationship at the time, which was the only thing that ever stopped us from getting together. One of the first nights I met her (it may have even been the first night) she slept in my bed, and to be honest I can't recall if we kissed or not. I remember her saying over and over how she wished I didn't have a girlfriend. I did have girlfriend though, and therefore nothing really happened. It's probably better that way, we are very, very different people ... it couldn't have worked out.

We remained close friends throughout freshman year, but sort of lost touch the other three years, rarely hanging out.

A few years ago, Becky found out from Matt Thomas (who I went to high school with, and who owns a tea shop on NW 23rd Ave) that I worked down the street at the Shutterbug. That X-mas I got a card from Becky at the store. I tried to call her to get in touch with her and to see if she wanted to get coffee and catch up for old time's sake. For one reason or another, that never happened. Over a year went by before we actually met up. Ally and I were now engaged, and she had just become engaged too. The four of us met for dinner, but I honestly thought that after that she wouldn't be interested in hanging out again ... time had changed us even more apart from one another.

About a month after our wedding, Ally came home from work to find a present on our doorstep from Becky and her fiancee. It was a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. It was a really nice gift, especially since we didn't invite them to our wedding. A few weeks later we received an invitation to their wedding in the mail. It was starting to seem like the differences between us still didn't matter to Becky, she wasn't going to let that stop a friendship from nearly ten years ago.

When we arrived at the wedding on Saturday, we felt like maybe we shouldn't have gone. I didn't know anybody there. We decided that after we ate, we would bow out. As soon as the ceremony was over, we turned around and saw my roommate from the dorms, Chuck. He and his wife (Brynn) live in Italy but were in town to visit and to go to this wedding and David Wood's wedding. Things started to look up now that we had someone to talk to. We sat at a table with Chuck and Brynn and after a short time, Matt Thomas and his wife Bethany showed up as well as Luke Atwood. I can't say that I have ever been friends with Luke, but it was interesting to talk to him about his Eurobowl championship and to realize that he has seemingly outgrown the cockiness that made me steer away from him in high school. It was also nice to catch up with Matt Thomas. We were on the soccer team together freshman year of high school, his older brother took me to a Nirvana concert the same year, and we lived together for a brief time in college. He now lives in NE Portland, not too far from us, and I'm thinking of calling him one of these weekends to see if he wants to hang out. I could always use a new/old friend.

All in all, it was a fun wedding ... I'm glad that we went.