35

I went with The Girls to Fayetteville this weekend.  We all met in college at Fayetteville sometime during our freshman year, and we've remained close friends ever since.  We are all over the country now, in four different states and three different time zones, but we manage to get together about once every year or two.  This weekend was in Fayetteville for the Black Crowes concert - signature music from our college years.  It was a terrific concert, made all the better by running into the keyboardist beforehand.  Great music, incredible weather, interesting ummm smells...it was all good.  Perfect, even.

As of this week, we are all 35.  It doesn't seem possible, really, that we could actually be contemplating our 40th birthdays.  The differences in being back on campus after being gone for many years were interesting, and it wasn't just the new buildings (although there were a lot of them!).  I can remember wondering who used to buy the clothes and non-school books in the university bookstore, because how the hell could I afford $50 for a sweatshirt and still eat???  Now I get it.  We buy them - the folks who go back, the ones whose memories help suspend time for a weekend.  But even in the midst of the memories, I'm still glad to be where I am now.  I'm not sure I'd go back to my early 20s again, as terrific as they were.  I kinda like where I am right now. 

35 Is:
*Being able to walk into a university bookstore and buy a shirt (or two) without worrying about whether you'll be able to buy toilet paper this week.
*Still being surprised by old friends.
*Going to a concert and really not giving a damn about how badly you dance, because you are just so happy to be there, with your best friends, enjoying the music.
*Taking your husband along with you for the trip (because he really is one of the girls) and watching him and one of The Girls get totally plastered - and no one getting sick, and no hangovers in the morning.  Guess that means that we drink smarter these days.
*Driving through campus and occasionally not knowing where you are because there is so much new construction.
*Beginning to feel settled in who you are, but knowing that the ability to surprise yourself is very much still there.  And being wary of it.
*Pretty damn good.