GUEST POST: Mild Epiphany in Lake Tahoe

Cob here. Before I start my long rambling series of observations and thoughts that, for whatever reason, some of you appear to enjoy, I need to share some important information. Mrs. Swan is at the beach for the week relaxing, and (I believe) chillaxing,. She had intended to write while doing said –axing activities. Unfortunately, she grabbed her computer and only half of her power cord. So she won’t be able to make any meaningful posts until Saturday at the earliest. In the meantime, I am here in Sacramento’s airport waiting some 6 hours before 10 p.m. flight back to the ATL. So at the lady’s request, and because I have been doing quite a lot of thinking in Lake Tahoe this weekend, I am pinch hitting today.


This weekend one of my good friends from college – Bobby – married the wonderful girl he has been dating the last couple years Sadia. The wedding was in Lake Tahoe. WOW. It was an amazing wedding in an amazing place and it was a reunion of sorts of the “old gang,” that is my 5 best friends from college, together with their wives and girlfriend. (Yes, Mrs. Swan could not make it. She could not fly per doctor’s orders. Neil’s wife Liz – a baby doctor herself could not get away this weekend either. The result is that we missed both of them greatly and that Neil and I got to cuddle)

Anyway, spending time with everyone this weekend was so… comfortable. And amazing. I don’t know how else to describe it. These are the guys that I spent most of my college days with, which was the four years of my life when I made the biggest steps toward discovering myself. When I think about the comfort that I felt, the familiarity of just hanging around with the 4 or 5 people with whom I share so many great memories, my first thoughts on how to describe it is that it was “just like old times.” But you know what – that is not fair. “Just like old times” does not do it justice.

Sure, I drank more this weekend than I have in a long time, and judging by the groans, bloodshot eyes and the smells (god the smells!) I do not think I was alone in that boat. And yes that was “just like old times.” But in between our reminiscing, and sharing old stories with Dan’s new girlfriend, we had great conversations that allowed me to learn and discover more about my dear friends.

I think of it this way. We still had the same group dynamics, but now the characters themselves were a little different and as a result the subject matter was a lot different. True, dicks jokes were still abundant – and excellent by the way. - but, for example, we also had a forty-five minute conversations about childbirth. What? And as a result, the whole experience with my friends was richer and deeper than many of the experiences I remember from our days at Illinois.

Why is this? I think there are two reasons. Firstly, we are more mature and accordingly, our friendship is more mature. Secondly, and more importantly, our friendship is no longer defined by our environment, i.e. the fraternity house. I think this needs some explanation. In college, we were all phi sigs, we all lived together (for the most part), and when we were going to do something, e.g., go to the store, the movies, the bar, play soccer, etc., we included each other and we did these activities together. We all essentially had the same list of things that we could do with our time. So while we pursued different majors and might have come from different places, in the house we all shared a common set of activities and even values from which our actions, decisions, and ultimately our friendships flowed.

Now, being in Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Omaha, we no longer share the same environment, and instead live wholly independent lives. The “phi-sig-ness” of our friendship is now stripped away. As a result our friendships are no longer a sustained by being fraternity brothers. Instead (and I know this sounds so sappy, but I think it is appropriate) we are now simply brothers. Our friendship is now sustained and flourishes because of the friendships themselves, because of the connections we have made with each other. It is a subtle distinction, but it has resulted in these friendships feeling so much so much deeper, and more precious to me. It just feels purer, if that makes any sense.

All of this culminated this afternoon, as I ate lunch by myself in downtown Sacramento, having just dropped Neil, Dan and Elizabeth off at the airport, when the Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” came on the radio playing in the deli. I immediately thought of that first song last night at Bobby’s wedding and all of us dancing together, purely happy and without a single care in the world. From now on, that song will forever choke me up and will have a new meaning for me. Thanks guys. What a weekend.



Damn Proud.