Revelations during the Wedding

I knew that I was not Matt’s oldest friend. I was reminded of it often during our friendship from his other friends, but I always thought it was a good thing that friendship could endure the way it obviously had between him and his childhood friends. The reminder that set my mind down this path came yesterday during my friends wedding. JT had huddled with Matt and the groomsmen, which were all friends from the age that came when the parents open their doors to let their children explore the world. They huddled while JT told them that the first one of them was getting married and together, they will all get to this stage.
As a parent, I think to the days that come when I will open the doors for my children Aiden and Elena and when they will let their friends into their hearts. One day, I know, these friends will be closer to and know more about my children than I do. Yesterday, I saw the “driven one”, the “nice one”, the “strong one” and the “real one” hugging and for a moment, I saw them when they were young. I saw the “Long Hair” years, I saw the Hockey Years, I saw the “first love” years. It was clear that all of us were way past our Luke Skywalker years and into our Han Solo years.
During ICON 2011, I was in class which I think was called something like “Sci-Fi / Fantasy for old Rock Stars”. One thing I had learned about ICON was that the titles don’t always match the content, but this ended up being the greatest class I had taken at one of these events. The theme wanted us to think about all of those Sci-Fi heroes when they became gray and old. It was a very interesting topic, but for this blog it really comes down to the following Categories:
Years -

• Luke Skywalker - Young, talented and with something to prove. The Luke Skywalker years would be our last years of school and the first few years in our careers. Driven to succeed with a chip on our shoulder’s at trying to prove that we’re not kids anymore. 
• Han Solo - Mid-Career, established with little to prove. The Han Solo years would be from that moment when we win our first major battle in life to the moment when the gray hairs outnumber the regular color we have. Above us, they don’t work very hard and below us, they’re after our jobs. In this stage, we learn the phrase “What have you done for me lately” focuses more on the word “lately” than any other word. 
• Obi Wan Kenobi - Older, near retirement with nothing to prove. The Obi Wan Kenobi years are the years in which we advise or lead the others and hope to have a grand finish. Delegation to the Han Solo’s while teaching the Luke Skywalker’s is the basic method of operation. 

Honestly, Matt and I didn’t like each other when we first met. He thought I was a prick and I thought he was unreliable. We became friendly as time went on, but I can tell you right now the moment that changed our lives and made us allies and then friends.
We were at Komegashi with Bill O’Connell, who at that time was closer to a friend than Matt was to me. In truth, I was a prick and did not think it was possible to work with friends due to the fact that you may one day need to fight them for the same position. That day at Komegashi, we were discussing our dissatisfaction with the people we worked with, although all of us agreed that we liked working there. And then it came - Bill asked us how much money we made. Knowing it was a mistake, I didn’t see any harm in telling him and Matt. Bill was about to move to Washington and I didn’t feel threatened by Matt at all. I knew I made good money since I was making more than my acceptable range of salary. Matt maintained that he made more than all of his friends. Even Bill followed suit with the fact that he made more than all of his friends. The numbers killed us though. Bill had asked this question of the entire team of new hires before he had gotten to ask it of us. Matt and I were paid less than others who we felt didn’t deserve it. We didn’t complain. There were numerous avenues to which we could have taken, but what happened was we both became so driven to learn new things that we set out to conquer.
I taught Matt everything I knew about the hardware dynamics of PC’s and Servers. Matt learned programming while I learned databases. We were unstoppable. When we added Matt’s friends Mike and Dave to the clique, we became formidable enough to be noticed by everyone up to the CIO of a billion dollar company. As I watched the groomsmen in the huddle with the groom, I didn’t feel like a fellow groomsmen. I felt like an outsider watching the Goonies grow up and get married. Folks from my generation know that to be a compliment. These were friends who took the baton from Matt’s parents and raced their way up to the point where his career started. From here, they passed the baton to me.
Together, Matt and I had our Luke Skywalker years and began our Han Solo years. Over the course of this time, many of us joined Matt in his race during the career stage of this race, but yesterday was when we passed the baton over to his wife Rachel. Standing next to his parents, his brother and his age old friends we watched Matt and Rachel celebrate this momentous occasion and we will cheer them through the final leg of the Han Solo years of his life. Together, they will finish the race. Together, we will cheer them on. Those are the rules. We all know our parts. We all have to play them.