Old friends

There's a Ben Rector song called "Old Friends" that gets me every single time.

I played it this week after spending an evening with my two oldest buddies, and it hit different than it usually does. If you've never heard it, go listen before you read the rest of this. I'll wait.

Okay. Now you get it.

I've known Mat since kindergarten.

Forty-something years. We've called each other all kinds of things over that time, but he's been Pup to me since we were little kids, and Pup he remains. Chad joined the pack in sixth grade. Somewhere in there the three of us started a band, because of course we did, and we've been showing up for each other ever since.

We got together this week, and it was the best kind of evening. We told the same insane stories from growing up that we've told a hundred times, and laughed just as hard as the first time. And then, in the very same breath, we were talking about retirement savings and HSAs and our kids and our wives and the actual texture of our lives right now. That's the thing about old friends. One minute you're 12 again, and the next you're comparing notes on middle age, and there's no seam between the two.

There is genuinely nothing better than this. Nothing.

At one point it got quiet, because the three of us have something in common now that we didn't used to. We've all lost our dads. Mat's passed just last year. And there we were, three grown men who met as boys, sitting together on the other side of that, talking about our fathers and the memories and the missing. Grateful, mostly. But feeling the weight of how fast it all goes.

Because it does go fast. Faster than I think most of us are ready for.

I didn't really feel time moving until we started having kids. And then it was like somebody hit fast-forward. They go from this tiny burrito you're swaddling as tight as you can, the one who fits in the nook of your neck and needs you for literally everything, to a kid with track meets and opinions and a life of their own, seemingly overnight. And the wild part is that the hardest stretches, the sleepless nights, the screaming you can't decode, the frustration of not knowing what this little person needs, those are the exact ones I'd give anything to have back for an afternoon.

If we could bottle those moments, I'm not sure they'd be as precious as they are. Maybe the fleeting part is what makes them holy.

Which brings me, and I promise this connects, to Spain.

I've been thinking about the Camino a lot this week, partly because so many of you have asked about it. And almost every time someone brings it up, they say the same thing. "Oh man, doing the Camino is on my bucket list."

I love that. It's also gotten me thinking, because when Mark first offered me the extra seat back in February, my honest first reaction after saying yes was pure panic. What did I just do. My team needs me. I'm going to miss walking Hazel to school. I'm going to miss Charlotte's track meets. Evan's coming home right as I'm leaving. On paper, the smart move was clearly to stay home, book more work, get the business a little more comfortable, and go someday when the timing was better.

But here's what I've learned, and what I keep telling everyone who mentions their bucket list. There is no someday. There's never a perfect time to take the trip, or find the person, or have the kid, or buy the house, or start the thing. There's always one more reason to wait, one more box to check first, one more version of "once I have this, then it'll make sense." And that box never actually gets checked, because a new one shows up the second you do.

I'll be honest with you, in a way that probably makes me sound irresponsible. I'm something like 7 weeks of vacation into this year. Seven. Could I be working harder and making more money instead? Absolutely, no question. But my kids are only this age once, and I have never once heard a person at the end of their life wish they'd booked a few more jobs. So I keep choosing the experiences. I keep choosing the people. And I have zero regret about it.

So here's my nudge, and it's a real one, not a fortune cookie.

That thing on your list. The one that feels a little too big, a little too expensive, a little too inconvenient, the one you've quietly filed under "maybe in a decade." Stop waiting for the timing to get perfect, because it won't. Make an actual plan. Put a date on it. Pay the deposit, the deposit is what makes it real, trust me. Tell someone so you can't quietly back out.

Done is better than perfect. The experience beats the longing for it every time. And the friendships, the trips, the little ordinary Tuesdays with your kids, none of them wait for you to be ready.

Now really is the only time we get.

Go do the thing.

Grateful for you,
Ryan

P.S. I'm heading out on another camping trip next week, which, yes, adds to the vacation tally I just confessed to. No apologies. In the meantime I've been reading Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd, and it's quietly rearranging some furniture in my head about grace and how we picture God. If any of that is your kind of thing, it's worth your time.