This weekend I went to St. Louis for the wedding of one of my good friends from college. Now, I'm not one for organized reunions. I didn't go to my 10-year high school, nor will I go to my 20 or anything after that. It's not that I was particularly anti-social during that period of my life. It's just that sites like Facebook have made it possible for me to keep in touch with everyone I want to keep in touch with from that time. There is no one that I think, "Hmm, I wonder where so-and-so is these days..." Except maybe this one girl we nicknamed Salad Shooter after an "intimate" experience with some vegetables. But that would just be out of curiosity (Hole cover band? Kindergarten teacher?), not genuine interest in her life. Same with the mysterious cowboy boot-wearing James in my Spanish class who told me to use "Paint It Black" for a retarded English assignment for which we had to analyze a song (which is what happens when your teachers grew up in the '60s).
That said, I was tres excited about this wedding, as it would be a reunion that would produce not only great pictures but great stories - we would simply pick up where we left off in college with the antics that ensued (minus the drunken hook-ups). By the time I had arrived, people had already been nicknamed (mainly "Mustache," who had apparently been whooping it up at the same bar as them the previous night), just as in college the 3 too-tan sorority girls were The Tantastics, a guy on the floor below us who liked to go clubbing was Tight Tee and the 2nd guy who started to not wear shoes to class was Shoeless Guy Imposter (the original was, of course, just Shoeless Guy). Saturday morning, someone had already made sure the sports bar near the hotel was showing the 'Canes game. And when DJ called last song at the reception, it wasn't something slow and romantic like "Unchained Melody," it was Soulja Boy. That's what always got the crowd going at games, after all, and so we enthusiastically threw up our "U"s and the bride did the "Superman" dance. Now that's one for the grandkids.
And as I watched these girls breaking it down to booty song after booty song, I realized that this was why they were my friends. None of them were from Miami, and when I met them at UM, they had already totally embraced the "Miami lifestyle," something I had never done living here my whole life. While I was trying so hard to fight it, they were pulling on their tight black pants and heading to the dance floor. So I embraced it, too (though admittedly in a scaled back version), and fed off their "Midwest Girls Gone Wild: The Miami Edition" attitude. "You know how a lot of people look back at college and say 'I didn't realize how good I had it?,'" my friend Ashley asked me. "Well, I'd say I knew how good I had it when I was having it." And I think that's why I loved being around them so much. They weren't the typical Miami girls who took "going out" way too seriously - so seriously that they spend so much time thinking about seeing and being seen that they forget to have fun (or never plan on it in the first place), which is the whole point of going out. When I was with them, going out wasn't about bottle service or being in Ocean Drive party pictures, it was about having hilarious stories to tell the morning after over bagels at the cafeteria - and at weddings for years to come.
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What you said
yes, definitely college years are the best!
The friends and the moments you share are one of a kind.
Life surely comes at you fast; if you don't make the time to live each moment for what it is..then u find yourself wishing u could go back.
I am glad my college years are sure worth remembering!... Read more
I love it...this is exactly the same way I felt during my wedding. It was amazing to see people from all my life there to celebrate with me...representing different times in my life that have meant so much to me. Having fun is about sharing memories and being yourself. And that's something a lot of people have forgotten. Cool pic! :)... Read more
