on friday, me and a carload of friends drove to charlottesville to see a band called horse feathers play. the band’s cellist, catherine, was my first serious girlfriend back in high school.  we dated for about two years on-and-off and over the past decade have sadly lost touch for the most part.  we check in every year or so, and i have kept tabs on her through facebook and mutual friends, but for the most part, we hadn’t had a real-life actual conversation in years.  it’s kind of a bummer, but that’s also life.  you lose touch with people. while it’s a sad thing that we lost touch, it made the impact of seeing her perform that night all the more amazing.  she played with such confidence and sang these perfect harmonies.  it was amazing.  i remember seeing catherine play cello in the school orchestra and listening to her talk about one day playing cello in a band.  i remember encouraging her and sending her music from bands with cellists. and here we both were, all those years later, and she’s doing exactly what she set out to do.  it was amazing.  i felt so proud. ten years ago, we were these embryonic versions of ourselves - so many decisions still unmade, not yet shaped by our adult experiences - and now, here we were as adults, both doing things we were proud of.  i felt this overwhelming urge to remind her and congratulate her on how far she’d come since we were both kids. we spent a lot of time catching up at the show.  not as much as both of us would have liked, but enough to get the sense that she’s in a really great place in her life.  for some reason, it felt really good to know that. ten years later, we were both doing what we wanted.  we were both okay. there’s something incredibly comforting about that.

on friday, me and a carload of friends drove to charlottesville to see a band called horse feathers play.

the band’s cellist, catherine, was my first serious girlfriend back in high school.  we dated for about two years on-and-off and over the past decade have sadly lost touch for the most part.  we check in every year or so, and i have kept tabs on her through facebook and mutual friends, but for the most part, we hadn’t had a real-life actual conversation in years.  it’s kind of a bummer, but that’s also life.  you lose touch with people.

while it’s a sad thing that we lost touch, it made the impact of seeing her perform that night all the more amazing.  she played with such confidence and sang these perfect harmonies.  it was amazing.  i remember seeing catherine play cello in the school orchestra and listening to her talk about one day playing cello in a band.  i remember encouraging her and sending her music from bands with cellists.

and here we both were, all those years later, and she’s doing exactly what she set out to do.  it was amazing.  i felt so proud.

ten years ago, we were these embryonic versions of ourselves - so many decisions still unmade, not yet shaped by our adult experiences - and now, here we were as adults, both doing things we were proud of.  i felt this overwhelming urge to remind her and congratulate her on how far she’d come since we were both kids.

we spent a lot of time catching up at the show.  not as much as both of us would have liked, but enough to get the sense that she’s in a really great place in her life.  for some reason, it felt really good to know that.

ten years later, we were both doing what we wanted.  we were both okay.

there’s something incredibly comforting about that.