This weekend, I went to a wedding for a close friend from high school, Sara. It was sort of unreal, being put at a table with all my old "lunch-table-buds" from high school after about six years had passed. The last time I'd talked with some of them, I getting ready to go to a college I wanted to transfer out of, I was very very single, and I had no idea what to do with my life (except be a hot doctor on ER). We all caught up as best we could and then she appeared, at the entrance in her white dress. The sight shook me up. Looking back, Sara was the only girl really in my inner circle. To me, she was a sister, a mother and I think for all of us guys, we secretly loved her. Not, obviously in a Notebook kind of way. We'd watched her all throughout high school with the same guy, who was also in our inner circle. She was always devoted, always supportive. I can't remember a single instance when she was blatantly mean (and if there was one, I don't doubt we deserved it). What I think we all loved was the relationship she brought to the table. Every guy at that table with me would have killed to have a relationship with a girl like Sara had with Mike.
When we all went to college. We had an opportunity to find the girl that could fit that bill, without having to watch the (at times) sickeningly beautiful Sara-Mike relationship. My friend Andy, headed off to film school and met his Sara. My friend Nick went flight school and began emailing a girl from high school, who he'd met but never really known -- soon they were together as well. John headed to college, met a few different girls as I recall, but finally seems to be with his Sara. And me? Met her in an internship program. Everything I loved in the Sara-Mike relationship plus breakfast-in-bed some Saturdays, hours of joint video games and sitcom series viewing.
But the guy who walked down the aisle with Sara this weekend wasn't Mike. Unlike the rest of us who were hard-up in high school but lucky in college, Sara had the opposite experience. Where Mike could be funny in person (albeit a bit obnoxious), he became a bit mischievous when they went to different colleges. I don't know all of what happened, but I know Sara suffered a lot. At times when I saw her after high school, I could see the pain in her face, but she was too devoted to say anything against him. In the time since then, I've come to distaste Mike. He could be a real jerk, I suppose. If you'd asked any one of us, back in high school, which relationship would last, we would point to Mike and Sara. But for a relationship to truly last, I suppose it doesn't take a Sara and a Mike. It takes two Sara's, two people fully devoted to a relationship. But after four years of painfully trying to hold together a painful relationship, it finally ended.
But after that, Sara met Matt while helping at a middle school youth group. He was everything she loved about Mike, but more. He was spiritual, he was musical, he was fun, but most of all he was the kind of devoted guy she deserved. All of us were there at their wedding, except Mike of course. But it was okay. Sara looks so happy with him and I haven't heard a negative word about the man from anyone. He seems to be a man who really deserves her. I guess you could say, at long last, Sara found her own Sara.
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