Nathanial Garrod

Transformation Tuesday: The Three Musketeers

Very rarely, I decide to give in to Instagram theme days. Tuesday is always #transformationtuesday, a day to celebrate change and transformation over time.

SEAWOLVESThis is a picture of my best friends and I during Christmas break in 2007. At the time, I had some small now-dumpy digital camera which I used to document essentially every moment of our lives when we were going on adventures. It ended up breaking the following spring during a trip to the beach. This photo, this moment, is probably definitive in our friendship and jokes we have had for years.

At the time, I was over-enthusiastic about almost everything, I was jumpy and while I never would have admitted it, I was absolutely terrified. Terrified that I would not make it successfully through school, that I would run out of financial resources, that I would not be good enough, that people would never take me seriously.

In the time since, I have grown a lot – and much of it due to my friendship with these two gentlemen. Over the years, while near and far, they have supported me, pushed me and carried me. Also; they have pulled me a bit. During rough break-ups in college (there were like, two) I would sit with them and cry. One time the laundry machine in my dorm building broke and I had to hand-wring my clothes at midnight just to put them in the dryer and one of them was there for me. We were roommates our last year in college, and we have celebrated so many things together – most recently, they were there for me when I finished my fastest half-marathon. They have dealt with my relentless “hey, we should… because someday we will tell the story to…”

And so many of those stories have already been told and retold, and I love every minute of it.

Friendship is being with people, is being by their side no matter what. Constantly caring and investing and talking.

IMG_1077I cannot believe it has taken me eight years to recreate this picture. I thought one thing that was particularly notable to the changes we have gone through was that the initial picture was taken in Starbucks and the more recent picture was taken in a locally owned coffee shop that roasts their own coffee.

We have been through so much the last few years – late night calls and texts about upcoming plans or fears, or excitement. Long stories about work and friends and the changes in our lives. Having these two as constants in my life has been absolutely incredible. The best part about having best friends that are twins: there are two of them!

I observed to the twins this past week that since living in Portland, I have not used a camera much, though I take lots of pictures with my phone. To them, me owning a camera again is just a recurrence of how our friendship has pretty much always been. To folks here, it is new-ish for me.

Anyway, I had a few more Transformation Tuesday thoughts than would fit in any reasonable Instagram post, so here we are.

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