A few days ago, I was leaving my parent’s house to head out to dinner with a friend from school – it was on New Year’s Eve, actually.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am always…always…always… uh, not right on time. So I was kind of in a frenzy, trying to NOT be supet late.  I live in a very cookie-cutter neighborhood that is extremely suburbia, so my neighbors and I often park on the streets, in lieu of the driveway, because the road is so wide.

As I was approaching my truck on the street, I saw a dark shadow on the other side of the street, getting out of their car. As I got closer, I hear my name.

Is that Justin Graves?

Uh, what? I was a little spooked.  BUT, turns out it’s an old classmate of mine from high school. Margaret and I always were good pals in high school, but never really stayed in touch past graduation.  She went to UVA and I went to VT (let’s be real, I would never be friends with anyone who goes to UVA), and we just ended up in different places. I always remembered her though, her sense of humor was always spot on and even though are personalities were VERY different on the surface, we always got along pretty well.

We stopped for a few moments and chatted as she walked to my across-the-street-nieghbor Nicole’s home, but I confessed that I was in a rush and that we would have to connect some other time.  I was less than five minutes down the road to my destination before I thought to shoot her an apology text – I felt kind of rude. Unfortunately there was no Margaret by her name in my phone so I added it to my to do list – FIND MARGARET! haha

So when I got home that evening, I made a Facebook post in an attempt to find her cell phone number. Yes, reason number everything that having an expansive social network is fantastic.  I just wanted to reach out and let her know how much I enjoyed seeing her – she always had such a positive energy that I try to emulate – it’s contagious.  2 minutes later, I had 2 inbox messages with her number in it. So I wrote her,

Hey Margaret it’s jgraves! Just wanted to text and say I really do hope you’re doing well! Sorry I was in such a rush and couldn’t stop to chat! :) (:

Since that text on the night of Jan. 1, she and I have messaged gone back and forth, catching up and chatting about what we’re doing now, where we think life is leading us next, so it’s just interesting to see what an old friend is up to like 7 or 8 years after first meeting them! But most fascinating to me was a text she sent me a few days ago, out of the blue.

Also, I was just thinking if you ever want to ski, massanutten has a really cool adaptive ski program…

I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted it here but a few months back I had consulted some friends, also via Facebook, about any potential adaptive skiing options that were local.  It was originally a goal that I had planned for this present winter, but with Kristin’s accident I got a little distracted.  But a lot of friends recommended Snowshoe, and vouched for it having actually been there and friends with disabilities having been involved in their adaptive ski program. The amount of detail that Margaret gave me about Masanutten’s program sounds very interesting. They offer full courses, where you can graduate through varying degrees of difficulty. The coolest part about this program seems to be that it would also be with like-aged people, and there is the potential of being able to ski 100% on my own – which I never imagined.  I always thought it would be watered down in some way (see this review of an episode of a favorite show of mine, Push Girls).

For anyone who is also interested and would like more information about the program, visit Therapeutic Adventure’s website! Of course I’ll be sure to update the blog as I continue to look more into this. I think I’m going to aim for next winter, since I won’t necessarily be working full-time and might spend a week doing this instead! Would be another great thing to cross off my bucket list, along with hiking the Cascades, learning how to swim, and going water tubing. Margaret also told me about some funding options/scholarships & junk that they offer too! Snow tubing and snow skiing, here I come!

I think this just goes to show that you never know how a random, unexpected deed can bring good karma go back around to you – a la, what goes around comes back around. Now, I don’t mean that in the sense that “Oh, I ran into an old friend, let’s see what she can do for me.” That wasn’t my intent whatsoever. I simply wanted to reconnect – I love knowing what makes people tick, what they’ve been up to, etc. It’s the reason that I’m working on another blog post called “Traditions with Old Friends,” that talks about the group of people that I ensure that I see EVERY single time I come home – because friends are friends.  I think that the word is friend is something permanent.  It’s not something that evaporates, erodes, or goes away.  Just that genuine caring, i.e. trying to meet one ‘new’ person each day, assisted me in happening upon this fantastic opportunity.

Keep that in mind, my friends. Get out there. Meet people. Don’t expect things in return, but then again – you never know.