It’s sort of an odd thing to see your childhood best friend get married. I did that today. It’s just odd, I guess, since most of your memories of that person are of them at a time when you couldn’t imagine that friend ever being mature enough to get married.

At least that’s how it was for me today since I haven’t been around old Michael too much since we graduated from high school. We’ve kept in touch, but the major events that have caused changes, and maturation, in our lives have not occurred with each of us present to the other.

I was the first person from the groom’s guests today to show up, and he was having to stay in a room hidden until the bride arrived and went to the designated room. That gave us a pretty good bit of time to talk, and we had a good talk. Mostly, we just marveled at how we’d changed since we were last around each other a lot.

He was a slightly overweight non-athletic punk nerd with long hair and a denim jacket covered with patches from his favorite bands and comic books. He read science fiction and played his base. He was the class clown and the guy who could have been really high in the class (GPA-wise) had he not been a slacker. He was a slacker, then, because he didn’t much care about much (and if he did, he hadn’t realized it yet). He was restless.

The guy who got married today wasn’t the same fellow I knew back in high school (not that that was a bad fellow—just not grown up yet). The guy today has a new look (being a Marine will do that to you). He has some meaning to his life now. He cared for the family and friends sitting around him. He cared for the vows he was saying, and he cared for the woman he was marrying. He’s found little peace, and I was sort of proud of him.

I should probably mention that, from all appearances, he picked an awfully good girl, too.

Anyway, now I’m just wondering what I’ll be thinking in about three months when Kalyn and BJ are getting married.