Time

It's been another in a series of weird (and not in a great way) weeks around here.

On Saturday 18th, one of my HS besties' Dad passed away after a two year cancer battle. He was a genuinely lovely man, who was always so welcoming, and who, in fact, tried to get me a job at his company when he knew I was unhappy at mine (alas, early 2000's hiring freezes...). And of course, her losing her Dad, particularly in August, was an all too familiar thing. It was strange. The last time I'd seen my friend in person was right after he'd been diagnosed, two years ago. And in recent weeks, he'd been on my mind SO MUCH. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was intuition, I'm not sure. I hate that I'm of the age where my friends and I are losing parents. I don't mind aging overall, but this part sucks.

Later in the week, I learned that a friend of mine from HS, my prom date, in fact, had passed away suddenly at 42. This one hit really hard. I'm not going to front like we were besties. That would be disingenuous. But we had known each other from early childhood, been friendly through HS, attended the aforementioned prom, shared friends from both our hometown and his adopted hometown up in VT (which is close to where E grew up and is therefore full of E's friends and relatives). He was just a genuinely great, friendly, kind guy. The kind you feel glad to know. The kind it stings to lose, particularly so relatively early in life. A lot of our interaction was over social media recently, as is the case so often, but I'll miss his sweet posts about his wife and family, his smiley pics, his jokey, often light heartedly self deprecating comments, and his presence. I hope he knows the impact he had on the world and how many of us will genuinely miss him.

I guess events like this always bring to mind mortality, and the passage of time, and all of that, don't they? And then, this time of year also always brings to mind the passage of time. When new school years begin, it reminds us of where we've come from. It seems like just yesterday that my babies were babies. The day after tomorrow, they start 5th and 2nd grades. Life goes by fast. And sometimes, it's not as long as we'd like. And while it's going on, it's not always easy (understatement of all time). But there are good parts. There are always good parts. And the best we can do is try our best to focus on the good parts.