choices

In the past month, I was notified of another engagement, reminded of three upcoming bridal showers, went shopping and/or bought gifts off of registries for weddings, had a friend start seriously dating someone from match, heard of 2 new pregnancies, 3 babies being born, and waiting on 3 more babies in the next month or so.

Congrats to everyone - I would mention by name, but it'd be long than this whole entry. Hard to believe all this is happening to people who are my age, perhaps a little older, and sometimes even younger.

Sometimes I wonder - am I just standing still while everyone else is moving forwards with life? What happened to the simplicity of figuring out whether you'd get that problem set in on time, deciding what courses to take or what activities to pursue...when did it all accelerate?

And in the end, I'm left with some doubt and the fear of regret - did I make the right choices? Which is ironic, considering the basis of most of my choices have been to avoid regretting the things I didn't do.

But was it worth it? Is it still?

true friend

My buddy Chin (who recently bronzed at the Pan Am Games this weekend, congrats Chin!) and I had a discussion about friendship once. He tends to talk in analogies (I love analogies - very sad they took it off the SAT) and on this occasion he was half venting about recently being burned/disallusioned with a certain friend who had let him down.

"So let's say you're riding a bicycle and you crash and fall. What does a real friend do? Does he run up to you and immediately start criticizing your riding technique? Does he point out your mistakes, and how you should have done it better? No! His first reaction is to pick you up, take care of you, and make sure you're OK. That's how you know you have a true friend."