luck doesn’t even scratch the surface.

When I was a kid, we often went for weekend visits to my cousins’ house.   They lived far away, so we didn’t get to see them often, but when we did, it was an entire weekend full of fun.   Leading up to the trip, I would stay awake late into the night, unable to sleep in anticipation of all of the good times to come.  The departure at the end of the weekend often left me in tears.  After being filled up for a weekend, it was hard to leave feeling so empty.  There are few things in my life that mimic the feelings of cousin visits from childhood.  My yearly reunion with a group of college friends is one of them.

After posting our experience from last year (click here to view the post from Reunion 2014), I had quite a few people comment to me about how lucky we all are.  How lucky we are to have a group of people who cherish our time together enough to make it a priority each year to come together for a few days, even though we are all spread across the U.S.   This year, we had quite a few conversations about this “luck” and I have decided one thing… luck doesn’t even scratch the surface.

To find a group of friends, in college, who got along as well as we did, may have been luck.  But nearly 20 years later, adding spouses and kids who get along just as well, there is much more than luck that holds us together.   During one of the “after hours” conversations around the bonfire we chatted about if we would all be friends if we met today.   Because although we all have a shared past, many of have quite different day to day lives.  However, as that conversation continued, and we bared our souls through laughter and tears, I think it is beyond apparent how much our friendships are meant to be.  Our daily lives may be different, but that deep tie that binds us together, is there, through the good, through the bad, and through the entire year we won’t be together as one big group, until we meet again.

I am beyond blessed.  I am beyond grateful.  I am beyond thankful.   For these people who make me the best version of who I am.   For these children who will grow up alongside my own children… maybe only seeing each other once a year, but holding each other in their hearts until next summer.   For these friendship- unique and impossible to replicate.   And for that deep tie that binds us together.

Just as a PS, I am sorry, but not really sorry for the mass quantity of silhouettes in the sunset.   Lucky for you, this is only a small portion of the ones I took.  I am pretty sure, if there was a niche for “photographers who only take silhouette pictures in beautiful sunsets,” I’d want to join that group.   These sunsets were unparalleled and I might have actually squealed when the sun came low enough for some amazing flare.   That’s all now.  Good night 🙂