A Pic in Time

My morning email ritual is one that has varying effects on the start of my day.

Sometimes, its monotonous, as I delete spam and junk mail, and read boring memos or notes from colleagues, higher-ups and co-workers, skimming each one with glazed eyes.

Other days, its downright exhausting as that morning's batch of email provides me with at least one full day of work that has to get done immediately, in addition to the things that I put on my To Do List the day before.

And then there are those mornings where I literally thank God for the magic that is email and all that it has brought to modern day life. Today was one of those mornings.

The first email in my inbox this morning was from Alice, the best friend of my old college roommate. When college ended, the bond I had formed with Dee, someone I had not known until that hot, sticky August "moving in" day our first week at college, happily continued to grow and remain strong over time. Living together in one room for 2 years will do that to ya.

Fifteen years later, we're still friends, still stay in touch, and her best friend Alice is someone I now also consider a friend.

Alice had emailed a photo she had unearthed while cleaning out her attic. It is the silliest of photos, and it brought back a flood of memories.

We were all about 23, tan, carefree and on vacation at the shore. It was the first time I had really ever spent any time with Alice, other than the few times when I had visited Dee and interacted with her in a group setting.

The photo was taken in one of those cheesy little boardwalk shops where they have costumes and backgrounds for you to pose in, and then they charge each of you $10 for a single copy of the cheesy, silly photo.

We chose the western saloon photo and there we are, in all the Old West Saloon Girl finery of feathers and black chokers and big, frilly dresses with a background of a very old, gritty bar behind us.

That was the last vacation I had gone on with Dee, as she would be getting married in the near future, and it was also the beginning of my friendship with Alice. We liked each other and got along really well. Eventually, we'd go from being mutual friends of Dee to being friends with each other. We didn't realize that's the path we were on, but that's typical of life in general.

See, as is what usually happens the first few years after college, Dee and I stayed in regular contact and visited each other often, since she only lived an hour away. We went on summer vacations together.

But then, she got married, I got busy, the years flew by, and we found ourselves barely doing the yearly b-day cards and Christmas phone calls. We saw each other maybe once every couple of years. Sometimes Alice would be there, sometimes not.

Then, a little over a year ago, Dee called one day out of the blue to get together. When we saw each other, she told me she was separated, was getting a divorce and going back to school. The bonds were instantly re-cemented and the phone calls got more frequent and visits now once every couple of months instead of years. And of course, we exchanged emails regularly.

We'd meet for dinners, shopping and happy hours. Sometimes just us, sometimes Alice and a few other of Dee's friends. As she prepared to go away to school, I started emailing with Alice on my own to help plan girls nights out and the going away party. Alice was also added to my email joke list and buddy lists. She added me to hers and a new friendship was born. We were no longer mutual friends of Dee's. We were simply friends.

Since Dee left for school, Alice and I have remained in touch and meet whenever time allows for Friday happy hours or dinner. When her husband asked for a divorce, she emailed me to tell me. When she went out to visit Dee at school, she filled me in on all the details when she returned and sent pics.

And then there was today's picture. A real glimpse back into the past and, strangely enough, at the same time, a precursor of things to come. When that pic was taken, I probably described it as, "there's me, Dee and her friend Alice. Now its -- "there's me and my friends Dee and Alice."

The birth, death and ever-changing cycles of friendship never cease to amaze me and its funny how the events that have transpired since that vacation picture, taken all those years ago, have made the memory of that photo that much more special.

When it was taken, it was me, my old roommate and her friend. Today, its a picture of me and two good friends, and a chance to remember me and us as we were back then and realize how far we've all come. How the roads we've each traveled separately, have strangely enough, helped bring us all back together and added to the uniqueness and specialness of the memory that photograph evokes.

This morning, as I stared at that picture for several minutes and then made it my screen background, I felt a wave of genuine gratitude for the magic of email and the friendships it has helped nurture.