The Phases of Our Lives

My best friend Kelly got engaged this weekend and I am immensely happy for her.

Luckily, I was able to see her within hours after the big question was popped, and she was glowing all day long. We spent hours talking about churches, dates, bridesmaids’ dresses—the whole shebang. Her dream is coming true—and not only because of the wedding, of course. Her fiancee is pretty good, too.

When my friends first started getting married, I was still in college. Weddings then for me were a dramatic event. I remember getting weepy and sentimental, wondering if our friendship would ever be the same now that this person’s life was about to change in a major way. (Insert Michael W. Smith’s classic ode to relationships, “Friends,” here.)

But I’m over that, for the most part. Now I’m just ecstatically happy for them. Maybe it’s just knowing that getting married, or moving, or graduating, or having a baby, or any other life change does not mean that our friendship has to change. I’ve been through all these situations with lots of my friends and I’ve happily realized that nothing really changes. It’s just the phases of our lives.

So bring on the bouquets and the babies. I can handle it.


Soundtrack: Dixie Cups (yes, Dixie Cups), “The Chapel of Love”