Separation Anxiety

College is such a tease. You start to live a life that isn't real and when it is all over you are left holding the bag and most likely a box of tissues. My friends and I attended school at an undisclosed location perched on the side of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The streets were filled with beautiful people, tasty food and lots of liquor. After four years of basically living in a resort local (a place most people visit for a once a year or once in a lifetime vacation) we were all tossed out into the cold cold world.

The first year was by far the worst. We were separated, broke and searching for any work we could get our hands on. As time passed we all moved on but late at night images of what once was float through my mind and I wonder "why did we have to wake up?" In the immortal words of the classic film Reality Bites, " I was really going to be something by the age of 23."

It has been two years and although we are all going through the motions of our lives something still seems terribly off. Can't we continue to go through life wearing flip-flops and sun dresses, with a mojito in one hand and a vanilla clove in the other? No, instead we have forced ourselves into high-heels, scrubs, maternity tops and business suites.

I was always in such a hurry to grow-up until I realized that once you get there or at least close to it there is no going back. Unfortunately life is a one shot deal. There are no do-overs and there are no take-backs. What's done is done. Period end of sentence. Why is it so hard to embrace the present and so easy to look back with longing at times gone by?

My girls and I still have monthly conversations and during each talk we inevitably revert back to talking about all the boys, booze and bygones. Each conversation ends in the same manner :

Me: " Why can't we go back to how things used to be, when we didn't know how good we had it?"

BFF: :"I don't know but if you find a way sign me up."