In the interim between leaving school and your ten-year reunion, there are seemingly few events that offer opportunity to catch up with old/long-lost friends and reminisce. After the rush of twenty-first birthday bashes most people slink off quietly, many travel – some semi-permanently shifting overseas – and some start settling into adulthood, gaining a mortgage, marriage, maybe even a kid.With parents no longer funding the parties, guest lists get smaller. You lose touch with the myriad of peeps who saw you through your teenage years and get on with the business of interacting with work colleagues. You grow up.
Then come weddings – in all their grandeur.
At twenty-five, I’m in a committed relationship. He’s lovely. I love him. He’s thirty. We’re not married – not even engaged. I thought I was okay with this.
But on Saturday night I attended the engagement drinks of one of my best mates from school. Based in Hong Kong – where her now-fiancé works – Girlfriend is getting ready to take the next step into adulthood: one orange-coloured stiletto at a time (some brides like white; this chick plans to mix it up a tad).
Regardless of where they are in their careers, I still see school friends through school-uniform-clad eyes: cut-out dolls in tunics. I can’t get over the fact that she’s about to walk down an aisle to the bells of the Wedding March. So you can imagine my shock as I heard the evening updates of who is already married and who has even popped out progeny in the three years I was gone. Suddenly the finger to the right of my left pinky started feeling very light. Weightless. Missing some bling.
Not that it should matter what everyone else is doing – but with school friends it does. You spend six years of high school competing with them in the classroom, on the running track, in the pool, and in the fashion stakes of formals – it’s hard to let that competition go when suddenly you’re playing a more serious deck of cards.
I’m elated for my Girlfriend – she looks amazingly happy – but if I’m honest, I’m a shade of green too.
