Reliving my childhood

I played nerf basketball the other day.

A friend of mine included me on an invitation to a "welcome a new member to our group" type of open house. The odd thing was, I wasn't really part of "that" group. But I went anyway. Hey, there was the prospect of pizza and meeting new people. We played some fun group games, much fun was poked at the newcomer, and a grand time was had. As it got late people started to drift away. And the nerf hoop hanging from the inside balcony began to get some use. This next part is hard to believe, but some twenty-something guys started getting competitive.

Soon we were in the midst of all out, full-contact, co-ed nerf twenty-one. We played, we sweated, we clawed (or got clawed) and we stayed up far too late. There were three-point bombs, lots of trash talking, and autumn sweaters and sweatshirts gradually discarded for the t-shirts underneath.

Once I even finished in something other than last place.

(Come on...I was the oldest one playing.)

Another participant kept saying "it's like college."

And so it was.

It's a funny world we live in. We have close friends, and yet somehow some barriers that are nearly unidentifiable never come down. Additionally, once you leave school you can quickly find yourself surrounded not with immediate age-group peers but operating in a demographic that spans more than a decade. And we rarely play.

It was delightful to make friends, and play a pointless game, and revel in spontaneous fun, flagrant fouls, and--in one case--an almost eerie skill at this kids game.

This was one of those parties where I was thinking "why don't I just turn around" as I pulled into the neighborhood.

It turned into one of my favorite experiences this year.