The Greatest Weekend Ever

I figured out a while back that part of, or maybe even all of the reasons why people enjoy my writing is because I have the ability to make events sounds better or feel more interesting to my reader than they really were. I'd like to think I don't use too much hyperbole in this process, but rather I just highlight the absolute best things about a situation and describe them in an appealing manner. That being said, I've been trying to write a blog about two of my best friends getting married and the weekend that surrounded it for over a month now and I just haven't been able to do it. I would get half an idea of how to approach the topic and then it would evaporate just as quickly as it came to me. I couldn't decide whether to make it a humorous recap of all the shenanigans and tom foolery that we all took part it for three days or to write a tear-jerking, sentimental tale of true love and being a part of it. A moment ago, the problem with writing about this event dawned on me; the weekend was too good. Making an average road trip and wedding sound like the best time ever would be easy, but how on earth am I supposed to write about an event that words could never do justice, no matter how perfectly they were crafted?

I only spent one school year in the same state as Evan Stone, but he quickly became one of the best friends I will ever have. I can't properly describe the strangely close and mostly heterosexual relationship Evan and I have, so I would suggest you look at Turk and JD from Scrubs and use that as a point of reference. At one point during that same school year, I jokingly claimed that his girlfriend was my bff, I believe as a result of her promising to send me a batch of cookies with the next box she sent Evan. This girl, Becky, actually did become an incredibly good friend of mine and I couldn't have approved more when after Evan had moved away from me (tragically) and back closer to home (and closer to his girlfriend) in Illinois, he proposed to Becky and she said yes. That was in November of 2008. The wedding date was soon scheduled for June of 2010 and thus began the longest build up and most highly anticipated event of my life pretty much. Two of my best friends were getting married, pretty much all of my other best friends from college would be heading on a road trip to Illinois (the site of the wedding) for a long weekend and hopefully the best time of our lives. It's probably up for debate who was more excited for the big day to come; the happy couple or their road tripping, fun loving friends from Nebraska.

Usually when something comes with this much hype, it can't possibly live up to the expectations. I mean its just not even fair to expect it to. My friends and I were literally building up this weekend in our minds for over a year and a half. There was no way this thing could possibly come anywhere close to the dream we had painted in our imaginations. The scheduled departure day for Illinois came and things were at a fever pitch. I was excited beyond belief, but in the back of my mind I was a little bit worried. I realized that no matter how amazing this weekend was, and I was sure it was going to be phenomenal, I was probably still going to be a little disappointed. How could I not be? After 19 months of hype, a letdown was inevitable. It would have taken a miracle for things to turn out better than we had hoped for.

The weekend came, and passed all too quickly. I'm going to refrain from describing anything that happened specifically because it will never look as good on paper as it still does in my memory, and I just don't want to ruin that. Let me just say that I don't think any of us that made the trip to Illinois for Evan and Becky's wedding came home disappointed. I know for me it completely surpassed the hype. When we all made it back to Nebraska, one of my friends and I exchanged pretty much the same sentiment . . . what do we do now? We had been preparing all of this time for the greatest weekend of our lives, and we actually got it. How often does something turn out to be every bit as good as you had hoped for? Not very often, I know that.

I'd like to leave you with some deep philosophical conclusion to all this but the truth is I just don't have one. I know only a few things and here they are: I absolutely love my friends and will deeply miss these times I have with them once all of us inevitably go our separate ways. Evan and Becky are two of the greatest people I know, and I love them and both of their families so much. And last but not least, the fact that this weekend of their wedding lived up to all of the hype we'd built up for it gives me hope; hope that dreaming and wishing for things to be bigger and better than you ever thought they could be is alright, because every once and a while things work just the way you wanted them to. Just ask my friends Evan and Becky, their story is going pretty well for them. Now, I won't lie to you and tell you it happens all the time, it doesn't. It's a rare thing, but it only has to happen once in a blue moon to keep that hope alive, and thats good enough for me because like a man in a movie once told me, hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies.