Chilly weather

     It's been a long time since I watched The Big Chill.  I first saw it in college and I never dreamed that someday I would be one of those people.  Scratch that, I'm older now than they were then.  For them, fifteen years had passed since college.  For me, it's a hello of a lot longer.
     If my numbers add up, they were the class of '68.  Fifteen years later, ten years after the movie, I was the class of '93.  And now it's 2017.  It's edging close to 25 years.  One of my friends turned 27 last week.  That was a punch in the gut.  (btw, happy birthday, Sam.  I didn't have a chance to tell you on the actual day.)
     For the characters in the film, in 1983, the hits of Motown and the late '60s were nostalgic.  A few weeks ago, I was listening to music with a couple of my friends (one of whom is the afformentioned 27-year-old) and it hit me again that the songs I grew up with in the '80s are now considered classic rock.  And sometime along the way I got old.  My hair is thinning.  My beard comes in gray.  I'm a modern-day J. Alfred Prufrock.  And to answer his question, I don't dare.
     But that's not the point.  I watch this movie and I'm back in my dorm room wondering why it took me so long to see this movie, then I'm back here wondering why it took me so long to see it again.  And through it all I'm seeing the faces of the people I loved back then.  We drifted apart but I see them now on social media and they look the same as they did back then.  They're happy, they're successful, they're well-adjusted.  I guess I'm kind of jealous.
     Halfway into the movie and it's not what I remember.  It's actually hilarious and pathetic, not dramatic, and every time it starts to drag me down into the maudlin nearing-middle-age blues somebody says something funny and it's right back to happy town.  Lawrence Kasdan, I admire you for Empire, Jedi and Raiders but I am in awe of you for The Big Chill.
     The best part of rewatching a movie like this is also the worst part.  For a couple of hours I got to spend time with old friends and then they're gone again.  Old memories come back unbidden but will not depart so easily.  A future I used to fear becomes a past I wish I had known.