{"id":3148,"date":"2018-05-11T19:57:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T19:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=3148"},"modified":"2018-05-12T00:20:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T00:20:18","slug":"on-friendship-and-these-fleeting-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2018\/05\/11\/on-friendship-and-these-fleeting-years\/","title":{"rendered":"On Friendship and These Fleeting Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige<\/em> — Fraternity brothers, cast mates, friends. But this isn\u2019t your average Wabash story.<\/p>\n

Jared Cottingham \u201918 and Nathan Muha \u201918 first met on the tee ball fields of Lowell, Indiana, 17 years ago. Nathan\u2019s father was the coach. They\u2019ve been friends ever since.<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of Commencement on Sunday, the two will take separate paths — Nathan to Chicago to gain a foothold in the theater business and Jared to medical school in Kentucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be all that strange,\u201d Jared says. \u201cThe ties are continuing to deepen. It\u2019s not going to matter where we are on the map. That\u2019s life. The same thing happens with family, and he\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nathan Muha.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Family might be selling this connection short. Think of the conversations in the hallway or lunchroom at school, the rehearsals, or your first college roommate. Every meaningful moment in your young adult life shared with the same friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of the joy of knowing someone for so long is that all of these formative experiences happen along with them,\u201d Nathan says.<\/p>\n

While, obviously, very close, the chance to spend these college years together was simply a happy accident, according to Jared. Both sort of assumed that they would be going to other schools and didn\u2019t talk much about college choices. During one of those off-hand winter break conversations, they discovered both had applied to Wabash.<\/p>\n

As Nathan says, \u201cWabash was the best opportunity for both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jared Cottingham.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Strolling to the Senior Bench for this conversation, each looking the part of a college graduate complete with coffee in hand, the talk turned to friendship, to the ones made here. Nathan boiled friendship down to the essentials. It\u2019s a lesson many learn over time, but not usually at 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be unfair to expect out of a friend the things I\u2019ve gotten from Jared because of time and experience,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not something you replicate. We\u2019ve both made really incredible and fantastic friends here \u2013 ones we\u2019ll cherish for the rest of our lives \u2013 yet that doesn\u2019t compare to a lifetime with another person.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cottingham, there is comfort in togetherness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting because friendship provides you with a rock to reflect on the experience, but also to make the experience that much more special because there is an enduring theme of simply being together,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of our friendship has revolved around the academic year and we\u2019ll go on hiatus for the summer and not see each other for months. That experience of not seeing each other once in a while has never diminished our friendship. We always pick up where we left off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — Fraternity brothers, cast mates, friends. But this isn\u2019t your average Wabash story. Jared Cottingham \u201918 and Nathan Muha \u201918 first met on the tee ball fields of Lowell, Indiana, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/Muha_0151.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3148"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3157,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions\/3157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}