Old Friends

One of the hard parts of being a "younger" member of the crowd at work is that when you start getting attached to people, they retire. This happens with friends (even non-work related ones) that move and things like that but today I was reminded of how good it is to see old friends... even "work" friends. :-)

Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to work with every state trooper in the state of Alabama and two of the head guys retired this year. This made me very sad as I enjoyed them on both a professional and personal level.

Well today I am at a conference for work in another part of the state and I heard one of them talking as he walked in the room. I turned around and literally squealed I was so excited. He gave me the biggest hug... so big that he literally picked me up off the ground. I had not seen him since the summer and I have missed working with him and talking to him so much. He was my partner in crime for the best time I have ever had at a NASCAR race... and I feel quite certain that I will never again have that much fun at a race again. He looked out for me at conferences and made sure I was having a good time and is still someone I will always look forward to seeing.

Then not 5 minutes later the other trooper walked in. I was once again thrilled! Even though they have retired to other jobs and new adventures in their life, they had decided to come over to our conference to visit everyone. In the back of my mind I had hoped that they would but I didn't really expect that they would.

Oh how good it is to see old friends. It makes me want to look up friends from college and go visit them too. It's so easy to forget how much you miss some people until you see them again.