Good news!

One of my friends from high school got engaged over the weekend!  I'm so excited for her.  There are six of us that were good friends all through high school and we've all kept in touch for the (gulp) 10 years since we graduated.  I don't exactly remember how, but at some point in high school we started calling ourselves the Compatibles.  Each of us had a name (and don't worry, we only referred to each other this way, it's not like we wandered around high school with badges on or anything): the Funny one, the Smart one (that's me, what?  I was valedictorian: NERD), the Cute one, the Spunky one, the Slutty one, and, the recently engaged Pretty one.  Please also note that this was circa 1996, but I swear we came up with this before the Spice Girls.

I'm the most recent one to get married, and my second anniversary is rapidly approaching in May so it was about time someone else gave us a wedding to look forward to.  The six of us don't see each other very often; in fact the last time we were all in the same place at the same time was my wedding, and before that it had been at least three years.  Three of the girls still live in Michigan, one is in Ohio, and the newly engaged lady is in Chicago.  I'm the lone duck on the east coast, but I make a point to see the girls whenever I get home to visit my parents.  

Our relationships have changed throughout the years, as these sorts of friendships do.  Some of us grow closer together as our lives change, and others drift a bit further apart, but we all send around email updates every few weeks or once a month or so, so for the most part we all know what's going on in everyone else's lives.  I remember my senior year in high school telling one of my mom's friends that these girls and I would always be friends and hearing my mom remark that all friends in high school say that but that no one actually keeps in touch.  We went off to different colleges, and surely we would all find new friends and new lives and fall out of touch.  Here we are ten years later and I still hear my mom telling people whenever she mentions one of the Compatibles how she's so surprised we're all still friends: that never happens!

It's true that they're the only people from high school I still talk to, facebook be damned.  And even though I don't see any of them very often or even for a year or two at a time, I'm still glad that we've been able to make our friendships work.  We've been through three weddings, a divorce, several periods of girls not talking to each other and now we're expecting a baby and planning another wedding. 

The Pretty one is planning her wedding for November, at which point I'll have an 8 month old (can you imagine!) and more than likely it will be the first time some of the girls will meet my darling offspring.  We have so much to look forward to this year, and in the decades to come.

It dawns on me that I could have easily been dubbed "the short one."  Sheesh, could somebody find me some heels or something?