I'm getting older.
That is something that I am going to have to come to grips with at some point, but if I could stop it I would.
As the month of March slips into our rearview mirror, April comes flying up on us with all of its warmer weather and blooming flowers. The showers that people always sing about and that one day a year when all of my pleading and hoping will just get skipped over comes along.
This year I will be turning 28 - young by most standards - much older than I prefer.
And as I turn to a new year in my life, I realize that it has been 10 years since I was a senior in high school. It has been 10 years since I was still a kid, living with mom and dad and worrying about who I was going to go to prom with.
Since high school, I have had the same group of friends that I had back then. It is an assorted group of guys I've known for many years, about 12 of us all together. It was a collection of guys that, although not everyone was best friends, stuck together pretty nicely.
We traveled together and hung out almost every night. We got close to one another's girlfriends and families, and the girlfriends that came along after.
But something that has happened over the course of the past few years may be one of the hardest things I've had to accept.
As we grow up, we begin to grow apart.
It's a hard reality, to be sure, but it is inevitable for most. We have always been much different people, but as the gap of time and distance grows, so do those differences.
It is not that anyone has issue with anyone else, it's just that everyone has started living their lives.
It's hard to watch someone with whom you have been so close become a stranger in a sense.
This year marks my 10-year class reunion, and I am very on the fence about attending. I would like to see some of the people I used to know and to reconnect, if only briefly, with those who made a difference. But then again, we are all so different now.
I'm sure that I will go and once there, have a great time. It will be fun to see that girl that I was so crazy about that I didn't think I could survive if she turned me down.
Guess what. She said no, and I lived.
I had a great time back in high school - too good a time if you ask my parents, but we have all had to let go of those days to experience what was in store.
I never thought that in 10 years from graduation I would be married and have a 1-year-old son, but that is how it turned out, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Getting older isn't as bad as it may seem sometime. You miss the people who are gone or no longer a part of your life, and you miss the times that you spent, but there is so much more in store.
Like I said before, the girl who said no to a date was, at the time, one of the worst things I can imagine dealing with. It was such an important moment at that time, but all these years later it means so little.
I guess what I am trying to say with this is that although people from your past are important, the ones who stick around and continue to make a difference are the ones who mean the most.
Miss the old times, but don't ignore the ones that are right in front of you.