Category: friends

Time Travel

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Sometimes I wish I could go back to parts of my life, as if they were destinations on a map. Pack up the car and drive back to my first day of college, as I cautiously walked up and down the dorm hallways, anticipating the next year of my life. Schedule a flight and visit the marina in Sarasota the day I was nervously proposed to. Even the smallest of times, those that don’t often get recognized on my radar, I’d like to see – the day in the drama room back in high school where we planned the rookie induction week. When we all felt invincible. Of course, I can visit the places, but it’s never the same. I can repeat the same drive I took with my college roommate, when we belted out Disney songs for two hours straight on the way to Cocoa Beach, but the moment is gone. People change. I change. Or, in the case of spots I spent most of my formative years hanging out (Borders), places close.

Now, more aware, I try to bottle of the moments, freeze them in time, wishing I could put them on a GPS as a favorite place to visit. Go back one day ago when I was sitting lazily by a lake, eating dinner from a food truck with some of my best friends nearby. I know the moments that’ll stick with me, the ones I’ll file away to bring back on lonely days.

A few days ago, my high school best friend said she couldn’t come to my bridal shower, and probably not my wedding. The friendship had been dwindling for a while; we were no longer “best friends,” but she was the kind of person I wanted to keep around. There was so much history there. I wanted to be with her through the end of her story, to see what became of us. So when I heard this final blow, instinctively I thought…

It’s okay, we’ll just go back to Chick-fil-A, to that night ten years ago when we stood idly under the street lamp, talking to our friend who just got of work. We had no plans for the night, nowhere to be, so we decided to hop in the car and just drive. Fast. Us in one car, the two guys in another, we raced to the playground we frequented, the one no one else visited after sundown. Windows down, hair flying, we laughed, knowing what we were doing was wrong, but loving every second. We were free. We were flying. And we were alive.

Of course, we can never go back to that time. The Chick-fil-A is there, but the guys no longer live in the state. We could all reconvene, but it won’t be the same. We’re not those carefree 17-year-olds anymore. We have responsibilities, and second acts to our stories. One we don’t even talk with much anymore.

And it just seems so final, knowing those moments are over. The ones I still think about, and remember with distant eyes and a hidden smile. But as painful as knowing this sometimes is, I’d never want to get rid of them. They were my glory years, after all. They remind me of who I once was, and what I’m becoming. They remind of the good and bad, embarrassing and exciting. And while I can’t book a train ride to go visit them, I can open my mind like a briefcase during those periods of “oh, remember when…” and revisit them, if only for a short time.

Ten Years Later

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I was just informed that my 10 year high school reunion is scheduled for September 10th. A few things came to mind when I read it:

1) It’s FOURTEEN DAYS before my wedding. I guess that’s close enough to going back married, right?
2) I have a very limited amount of time to achieve my goal of becoming a published novelist before the reunion.
3) It’s really been ten years.

Ten years.

It’s weird, I’ve been reading the book Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan lately, and its been taking back to those early days of college with misty eyes and longing nostalgia. Now, getting this news, I can’t help but think back to high school. Who was I back then? How much have I changed?

How much has everything changed?

I didn’t have the Internet for my first two years of high school, and didn’t receive a cell phone until graduation. I had just started driving the previous October, and had never spent more than a week away from my parents. I was young, shy, with big bushy hair and contacts that didn’t give me a headache (as they do now). I cared deeply what others thought, but rarely voiced my own opinion. I wasn’t quite me yet – but I was happy. I had people who loved me, and that was most important. Especially in high school.

Because honestly, ten years ago the most important thing was friendship. At this point, I was already accepted to FSU. I was on my way to graduate, and prom was the only important thing on the horizon. And even that was more of a social gathering, than a romantic night. I held on tight to my friends, and went out with them every night. Be it someone’s house, Chuck-E-Cheese (where two worked), the mall, Borders, or just the neighborhood park, we were there. Living. Breathing. And all in the crazy mess of hormones and high school together. Hands held and eyes closed, we sped through the days, not wondering what would happen next, and not really caring. We lived in the moment, whether it was crying over a breakup with cookie dough, or arranging strategic games of capture the flag with water guns.

At 17, I was still figuring things out, still looking for more, and eager to embark on the next chapter of my life (yet still, scared to leave everything behind). I was good in every sense of the way, but I still drove fast and stayed out past curfew. I was invincible, in the way only a high school student could be.

So, to celebrate the date being set, this week I’m going to post a few stories from high school Lauren’s days. Before circus and Samir, before writing and teaching. I’m unlocking the diary, and remembering what it was really like to be 17: afraid, excited, confused, under appreciated (as we all were, right?), nervous, thrilled, and, well, young.

Morning Breeze

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It’s hard not to be surrounded my memories on days like these. When a light breeze tickles my arm as I leave the apartment, and the morning feels crisp, as if freshly opened and not left over from the day before. There’s no need for a jacket yet, but sweat marks don’t freckle my clothes either, from the normal mountain of humidity that plagues our state.

Every time a morning is like this, I think back to Callaway, despite the fact that I lived there six years ago. I think back to scratchy cloud blue polo shirts and khakis down to my knees. I think about waking up early so I didn’t miss one thing in our house that held 24 college students (even though I missed so much every night after my eyes closed). And I think of billowy green trees on the way to work, hiding what the day would entail.

I lived in Georgia for two summers, working as a camp counselor at Callaway Gardens. The second summer was more comfortable, more memorable, but I always reflect on the first initially. It held so much more.

I went in right after my sophomore year of college, scared and shy and clinging on to my two friends in the house. I knew everyone else by name and face, but held them on a pedestal usually reserved for celebrities. They were my peers, but so much more. They were the flying trapeze artists, the master riggers so comfortable in their skins that they could do and say what they wanted – even to our coach. They made jokes, decisions; I made my bed and hoped someone would stop by to say hi.

I was asked to go to Callaway while helping take down the circus tent. Fingers callused from holding a rope all day, and clothes a new color from what they once were, I shrieked with joy upon hearing I was accepted. I had been in the circus then for two years; I was far from one of the notable performers. I felt with this, I’d become one of the select few who were popular.

I roomed with a girl who quickly took me under her wing and opened my world up to old-timers and hair straighteners. I’d hang out with the others through her, rarely offering my perspective, but comfortable with the fact that I was included. I didn’t learn to have a voice yet, an opinion. I just wanted them to like me.

That’s not to say my friends weren’t enough – they were, and after a while, they became more than friends. Lifelines. Assistants in helping me realize who I was. I had John with me, and Abel, two friends from the dorm. Hunter, who I had Italian class with, and Lindsay, who I met while loading the truck to go to Georgia. As if it were meant to be, Lindsay and I fell into that comfortable friendship formed when two people don’t know many others in a full house. We were best friends from day one.

As the days went on, I opened up to them, and we formed a group, a clique even, and slowly added others. Mike, with his fast car and loud music; Jeff with his wacky antics. I learned their idiosyncrasies – they knew mine. I started speaking, really speaking. When forced to live together, it comes almost natural.

We drove to work together, the Georgia air just right as it flowed through the car. It was different from the breeze I was accustomed to, and it brought with it hope. I picked out CDs to play; I fought for the front seat.

Just like growing, there’s no exact moment I can point to when I learned to let go; when I learned I didn’t have to fear my own voice. I said I didn’t like a movie everyone else did; I slept an extra few minutes in the morning. I realized that no matter what I did, these new friends didn’t care. They were still there, despite my misgivings and mistakes. But more so, I realized the others, who I held with such high regard, were just like me, embarrassing moments and all. The pedestal vanished, we stood on solid ground.

When I got back to Tallahassee after the summer was over, I instantly called Lindsay, asking what we were doing that night. Within the hour, Mike came over and Hunter soon followed. We walked on campus together, hiding a summer no one else could relate to. So much happened, and so much changed. I was part of something, and when I went to the circus lot, I didn’t feel alone or shy; I was part of a giant web connecting us all, keeping us all together. I felt right and whole; the person I was covering up all those years.

So whenever the weather is just right, I remember that summer. I feel myself speeding through the woods in Mike’s car, wind whipping at my face as he takes each corner a bit too close. Red foxes running, yet stopping to admire when they’re behind the safety of a tree. And looking behind me to see my friends, singing along to a song we know all too well. The faces of the campers fade over time, and I’m sure soon I won’t remember the shortcuts through the grounds. It’ll become hazy, a memory from long ago that doesn’t want to say goodbye. Because no matter what, I know every time the weather is just right, I’ll think back to that time. And know it as the summer I became me.