I've got Mail

This morning I was pleasantly greeted with photos in my inbox. The first email was from an MBA classmate who I had all but lost touch with for the past 2 years. She had a baby in March and sent the cutest newborn photos, what exciting news! Following these pictures of the future I had another message with a photo from my past.
One of my best friends is moving across country and in the process of packing things up from his parents house, he came across a pre-digital photo from a high school era party in his back yard. I won't share the photo but will tell you it is of my favorite girls from Pawtucket and we are somehow making a human chair with our arms. Thankfully we had good taste and our outfits are not regrettable circa 1998 summer tank tops and shorts. This picture came with a note, "Wish we could all be back here again for one summer's afternoon". It really gave me something to think about on my morning commute. What are the odds that we could ever recreate that moment from the not so distant past...slim. Of the three of us in the photo, one is in NYC, the other Boston and I'm across the Atlantic, the sender is about to be in San Diego. I started thinking of great high school times I had with these three and it is hard to realize we have all grown up and moved on. It has been 10 years since we were sophomores in high school but so much has changed. We could barely drive then and now we graduated college and past our sophomore years in the real world. Maybe we will all be home for the holidays, maybe we won't. We keep in touch via phone, email and facebook but we miss birthday parties and random meetings. Thinking back to high school and even college, it was so easy to have all of your friends at arms length, walking distance even. Now I am a world away and the distance is increasing. I long for the days of bathing suits and volleyball when Mapquest could tell us how to get anywhere and we could just drive. We worked part time to pay for gas, movies and clothes and did sports every day after school. At the same time, I am happy to move forward, to accomplish things on my own and not need to depend on my parents (although I miss their swimming pool on warm summer nights) but I miss those summer days that often ran long into the night.