The evening was planned months ago. Dinner with the girls from 'the olden days'. Some of them I haven't seen for years. Six of us around a table. Where do you start? I suggested doing the round, just like a New Year's Eve round. Tell us about your life, good and bad, and let us know if you are happy.
Six very different lives were described, but I think everybody finished their resume with "but it's all good now, I'm happy!". Stressed out parenthoods, disillusioned careers, dysfunctional relationships, child disabilities, stretched finances. But also new business ideas, big families, pretty homes, hope and love.
Two of the girls are still close to me, even if we don't see each other more than a couple of times per year. We connect and the conversation is unambiguous and purposeful.
The other girls have drifted further and further away and I wonder how true their "but it's all good now, I'm happy!" really is. Or may be it is. May be it's just me having a hard time visualising myself being happy in their situation and therefore I struggle to understand how they can possibly be honest when they say they are. They could of course be in denial. Or faced by the peer pressure.
It was a sweet evening, moderate in drinking and wrapped up before eleven. Quite different from our evenings out twenty years ago.
Six very different lives were described, but I think everybody finished their resume with "but it's all good now, I'm happy!". Stressed out parenthoods, disillusioned careers, dysfunctional relationships, child disabilities, stretched finances. But also new business ideas, big families, pretty homes, hope and love.
Two of the girls are still close to me, even if we don't see each other more than a couple of times per year. We connect and the conversation is unambiguous and purposeful.
The other girls have drifted further and further away and I wonder how true their "but it's all good now, I'm happy!" really is. Or may be it is. May be it's just me having a hard time visualising myself being happy in their situation and therefore I struggle to understand how they can possibly be honest when they say they are. They could of course be in denial. Or faced by the peer pressure.
It was a sweet evening, moderate in drinking and wrapped up before eleven. Quite different from our evenings out twenty years ago.
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