50 years and counting

I went with friends today to celebrate with other friends their 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a fun afternoon of seeing old acquaintances, admiring the grandchildren of the celebrating couple, and eating cake, nuts and mints (the ingredients of a successful reception). My daughter-in-law has commented that she thinks I'm very lucky to still have good friends that I've know since college, and, in some cases, since elementary school. I agree, I'm very blessed.  I've been trying to remember how four of us and our husbands (who all knew each other since college or soon after) started getting together almost every year, allowing us to stay close friends. The group pictures we've accumulated over the years show us gathered at everyone's houses or lake cottages or in mutually agreed on vacation spots, young, slim newly weds, parents of toddlers, posing with our teenage children, at each other's children's weddings, and on and on.  The pictures seem to prove that we really have known each other for over 50 years, but I'm still puzzled about how 50 years can possibly have gone by so quickly?  A joyful mystery I guess.