Scott and I met in an Introduction to Sociology class, when we were both still trying to navigate the vastness of the school and I was debating whether Foucault was really the right choice for me. We were two of a kind — a little overwhelmed by the setting and elitism we found ourselves in, and a little underwhelmed by the fashion on campus. A few seminars and lunches later, Scott introduced me to Christiane, his best friend and roommate, and after that, we were three.

A couple of months later we gathered at my place on Thanksgiving for the first time — not just us, many of our new friends who either couldn’t or didn’t want to go home for the holiday. 

It hit me today that this was thirty-three years ago. Thirty-three years. A lifetime. One full of graduations, degrees, career starts and changes, promotions, launches, travel, bad dates, boyfriends, husbands, moves, cities, adoptions, births, parenthood, sickness, joy, loss, accomplishments, game nights, sweet dogs, jigsaw puzzles, snarky teens, elections, dilemmas, phone calls, hairstyles, and Thanksgivings.

When I opened a shop and fell into the retail craziness that revolves around that holiday, we shifted the dates a bit and started gathering on Veterans’ Day. Veteransgiving is when we come together for a weekend of too much food (now Vegan), too little sleep, movies, leaf-filled walks, and never enough hours. It is a time I look forward to all year as a celebration of enduring friendship, of keeping the connection going, of the constancy of both the tradition and having these two in my life, of making time for the people we care about, of talking about what’s happened over the last twelve months and what is coming up in the next. And every year it is a time that reminds me of how it felt when I went from feeling all alone in a new place to feeling like we were three. 

Image credit: Eitil Thoren Due

© Patricia Zanger