When Things Come Full Circle

This morning, I stopped by my high school to pick up tickets for their production of Grease that's happening this weekend. Seeing as I graduated almost five years ago, it's always weird to go back. Due to all the recent threats in our nation's schools, they're a little tighter on security now. If I want/need to go somewhere other than the front office, I'm either not allowed to or have to be escorted to my destination by a staff member. I understand why they do this, but it just feels weird.
Anyway, school security aside, the craziest part of buying tickets for Grease is that, six years ago, that same school did that same show and I was part of the cast. This won't be the first time I've gone back to see a show since graduation, and it's always weird seeing shows from the audience instead of being onstage, but seeing this particular musical will be extra weird. To add extra weirdness, opening night of this year's production falls on the 6th anniversary of the 2012 production.
I have a lot of great memories from our 2012 production of Grease, from whisper-yelling at freshman boys who wouldn't shut their mouths backstage to sneaking out into the audience during every rehearsal with the rest of the girls to watch the boys do Greased Lightnin'. One of those loud-mouthed freshman boys and I greeted each other with shushes every time we saw each other after that. My favorite memory, though, happened closing night with one of my best friends. It was his senior year, so that was our last show together. We had just finished our closing performance, and everyone was milling about talking to friends and family that had been in the audience. I was standing there looking around for more people when my best friend came out of nowhere, nearly tackled me with a hug, and told me he loved me. It took everything in me not to fall apart.
Back then, I thought that my friend graduating and going off college was just the worst thing ever. He had kinda been my rock, listening to every rant about every little thing that ticked me off and encouraging me when my grades weren't all that great. Little did I know, worse things were going to happen...and he was going to be there through all of them.
Before I get too sappy and write an entire senior thesis on how amazing my friend is, I'll wrap this up by saying that I am so excited to see this year's show. It'll be really neat to see what they've done with it and to catch up with some of my old directors. There's also like a 70% chance I'll get really sentimental and burst into tears at some point, so we'll see.