Adventures in trying to fit too much in one post:

In the past month, I have seen nearly fifty people. “Well, that’s easy,” you say, “I saw fifty people when I walked through the grocery store today.” Well, that could be true. So did I. But I mean that I saw and reconnected with fifty people who mean a lot to me.

Some of these encounters were simply over coffee. Other visits were lengthy. Some were spontaneous, like the trip to my Canadian grandparents. Others, like the Ohio wedding, had been in the works for eons. Some of the people I had known briefly. Others were childhood friends or family members I have known forever. Some of their lives have stayed the same. Most have changed, are changing, and will continue to change.

So, naturally, this has led to some thinking on my part. Thinking about change. Relationships. Change and relationships. Change in relationships.

And I’ve been thinking about it in terms of tubing behind a boat. (“What?!” I can hear you protest in my head. Ha! I will make this segue and connection, and it will work. Watch.) Specifically, I’ve been thinking about my relationship with tubing.

Tubing and I have been friends since the summer before high school, when my dad found a boat that looked like a mustard barge with an engine. Behind this ugly-but-powerful boat, my dad pulled us—my brother and me, and my sister sometimes—on tubes. Over the years, we learned which types of tubes were the easiest, the hardest, the most annoying, the most daring, and the most fun. We learned how to kick each other off from the same tube, another tube, and from behind the wheel. We learned how to teach others to enjoy tubes as much as we did, and then we kicked them off too. In wetsuits, we looked a bit like the old school Nintendo Battletoads.

To this day, it’s still our favorite thing to do as a family. So, last weekend, while we were all together at the lake, we went tubing. It was a chilly, windy day, but the only day we would be together, so we were going. Dad drove, Mom spotted, J was on the far right tube, M in the middle, and me on the far left.

That translates into: J was whipped the most, M got to stay in the lake and bounce around, and I caught slack and sat out of the wake in the waves a lot. And since we only had a half hour, Dad drove so hard that I could feel my brain hit the inside of my skull with every wave. Needless to say from that description: I didn’t enjoy the experience as much as I usually do. I fell a lot. J and M did not. I lost the war. Both my pride and body came out quite bruised.

Here’s the thing, though: I still love tubing. But my relationship with tubing is changing. Perhaps I am no longer intrigued by the kind of tubing that will leave me limping with sore muscles and bruises. I am getting old. I want the kind of tubing that lets me enjoy the ride in the sunshine and the calm. If I’m going to be cold, sore, and miserable… where’s the adventure in that? (Even as I type this, I laugh at my aging self.)

In a similar vein, I watch my relationships change. As we all get older and our preferences change with each bump and bruise, we each change. It has been such a privilege to meet up with these old friends and see how their kids are changing them, what they’re learning, and experiencing. To be encouraged. To encourage. To enjoy. To change. I miss living near them, just like I miss the days of being able to trounce my brother on the tube. (Oh, wait—that one only existed in my dreams.)

Even more than that, I am grateful for the opportunity to see them again. To continue to know them, even if we are far away and visits few and far between. I’m going to stop writing now before I get cheesy. Refreshed by friendships and a week at the lake, I now walk into… Pittsburgh and a new semester… yet another adventure…