  Minette and I hung out tonight for the first time in five years. At first she seemed hardly changed-- she's still as beautiful and bubbly and funny and sweet as ever. But there's something about her now that is more confident, more grounded. What is it? I think it's that she knows what she wants out of life, is aware of realistic obstacles that might stand in the way, and yet is fully ready to face those obstacles head on. When we were in high school, it was hard to see beyond the immediate future, with classes, extracurricular activities, boy problems, and fights with our parents being more than enough to overwhelm us. What we both have now that we didn't-- or couldn't-- have in high school is foresight . Foresight seems to be linked with self-realization, self-realization with maturity, maturity with experience .
We spent the evening going over all the significant experiences of these past five years, carefully drawing out the thrill of the watersheds and wincing at the recollection of the sloughs. Minette and I have similar dispositions-- sunny, optimistic, loving-- so it was really interesting for me to witness how time has taken her disposition and .
. .
seasoned it. Somehow, she is even more beautiful a person now than she was ten years ago.
When I opened the door tonight to her smiling face, her squeal, and her outstretched arms, I exclaimed, "You haven't changed at all! " But reflecting on it now, I realize that she has in fact changed a lot. We talked about the laugh lines around our mouths and our eyes, and how they are indications of our getting-on in age. "Sandy, people like you and me are going to have more wrinkles because we smile too much. " She facetiously demonstrated for me her new, wrinkle-free laugh, which looked more like a constipated Santa Claus' ho-ho.
God forbid that Minette should ever lose that ebullient expressiveness in her face in the name of preservation! As those lines deepen with time, they will reveal a preservation far more beautiful than the plastic smoothness of an unaffected and un-affecting life. 
