Moving Day

Leaving's hard. Fortunately, there's drink. Two of my oldest friends, Mike and John, came down from the Poconos on the last day of packing and took me to lunch, which is a euphemism for having a few beers in the sunshine. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon, and I almost forgot that I had a house full of men piling our stuff in the driveway.

I love getting together with these guys because, as any of you who've had friends in the 25year + range will appreciate, they know all your old stories. High school, college, early career. The trouble with these stories is that they are at beast meaningless and at worst, downright boring to anyone who wasn't there. So whenever we get together by ourselves, we have license to reminisce and laugh manically at things that would make our wives just roll their eyes and wander off to check on the kids.

John was the first of my friends to have children. You'd think he'd have warned us, but nooooo. All he did was talk about how great it is. After about the third month of not sleeping after Caroline was born, I called him up and said "what the hell?!?" "Oh, yeah," he said, "I left that part out." Thanks, John.

All is forgiven now, though, as the children finally do sleep through the night. Turns out John was the smartest among us, having them early and all. Now, as I'm trying to drag my mid-thirties body around after my three and five year olds, he's kicking back on the couch in the basement with a beer while his girls hang with their friends upstairs. It's clearly a young man's game, this. Thanks for the warning, John.

Mike, on the other hand, waited even longer to have kids. To be honest, I really never thought he'd settle down. I figured his life would just always be one long party. Kudos to his wife Ali for attempting and accomplishing the seemingly impossible. I clearly remember how shocked I was when he called me and said they were having a baby. It's so odd to see him in daddy mode now, because I still think of him as the same kid I met in 7th grade.

Everything changes, I guess.