Now I am going to talk about weddings

I had the chance to meet up with an old friend last night, a girl I was good friends with in high school through church. It's always fun to meet up with people and catch up on their lives and muse at how fast time flies. We were going through the usual whose where and doing what, and I came away reminded once again how marriage and kids are the way time starts being 'marked' in life after you graduate college. How is so-and-so? She's married and pregnant with her second. What's that guy up to now? He's engaged. Whatever happened to her? She's married, no kids.

Is that all we actually care about when talking about people? Or are we just so used to that as the normal way to report on the lives of those we know, that we forget how to step outside and think about who the person is, what they're really going through, or what else is important to them? And turning that around, what do people say about me? I make it easy because I'm always moving, so I guess it's "how is Jennie? " "oh she's moving to London"...but geez, if I stayed in one place, would it be "She's not married"? I'm completely happy single, but it's amazing how the way people refer to this can make it somehow an inadequacy or such a sad thing. Takes a frequent note-to-self to separate what's 'expected' from what I actually want.

Then I moved from that trainwreck of thought to this one: on the way home from dinner, I suddenly realized how far outside the 'church-isms' frame of mind I am now. All the phrases and words used to refer to people and how they are (besides their marital and parental status) were things like "good Christian girl" or "transferred to a Baptist church"or "well he's certainly not a pastor like he once said he would be". I can't remember some of the more poignant things that stuck out in my mind, but it was a surreal night altogether. Any time I come back in contact with my ultra-conservative Christian roots is always a fun trip. :) Not to say that I don't go to church, (I still do the music most Sundays at a Methodist church here) or don't still have a basically Christian faith, but I don't move in the closed circles I grew up in, or think in those terms any more.

I'm hoping to get some more London pictures up soon! If not, it's less than three weeks from when I go for my long trip to flat-search, and I'll bring my own camera so I don't have to wait for people to send me photos.