60 Before 60 Project: #22 - Reconnect with Old Friends

Are there people in your life that you don’t see for years but when you get together it’s like no time has passed? 

John and Dianne are a couple like that for us.  

John and my husband were friends in high school and then roommates at University. John’s wife Dianne came into the my husband’s circle of friends during their University years and I got to know all of them shortly after their graduation. 

John and Dianne, my husband and I and two other couples used to hang out quite frequently in our BC (before children) years. We would often go out for dinners, vacation together and celebrate with each other our life’s major milestones. 

But life changed. 

We moved away to another city and my husband and John would occasionally chat, but it became more and more infrequent as our lives were filled with work and our kids' activities. Over ten years passed where we had very little contact beyond a Christmas card greeting.  

About two years ago, they came into town to watch their son play a hockey game for the American Hockey League (AHL) against one of our local teams. We had dinner together and went to the game and it seemed like no time had passed. We had a great time, and all agreed we should get together more frequently now that our kids were older. 

But then the pandemic hit.

Socially isolating and no travel pretty much shut down down any chance to get together and we started to drift apart again from John and Dianne. 

My husband noticed that their son was going to play a hockey game near us again and so he reached out to John to see if he and Dianne would like to come and stay with us and go and watch the game. They thought this was a great idea and we set up the arrangements. 

When they came, we initially thought that we would tour our city or go out or do something, but we ended up just spending two days together just reminiscing and laughing at our younger selves and some of the shared memories we had. My stomach ached from laughing so hard.  

We also talked about things we hadn’t even thought about before (for example our health and aging) and had some deep conversations about this next stage of life but always returned to making jokes and laughing. 

We did go watch their son play hockey and had an amazing time at the game.  

When it came time to say goodbye, we agreed that we all had such fun we would definitely stay in touch. Possibly even go on a trip together and even see if our old gang was up to going too.

My husband has a high school reunion coming up and was considering not going but given we had such a good time together we didn’t want to miss another opportunity to all see each other again. 

It’s funny. When I went to write this 60 Before 60 experience, I was originally going to focus on going to the hockey game but as I thought more about it, the real highlight was of this activity was reconnecting with old friends. 

My 60 Before 60 Project Lesson: Time may pass but good friends don’t

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