I have noticed lately that my friends are developing lines around their eyes. Some of them have hair that is changing from jet black to a salt and pepper hue. My friends are getting engaged; some are already married, a few have children.
We never really closed down the bars, we aren’t really that kind of people, but we stayed out late, and didn’t consider it a party without dancing. Now I am secretly glad when someone mentions turning in at 10:00.
My friends have kitchens with knife blocks and vast collections of spices and exotic alcohols collected from around the world. Everyone has their own sugar, milk, and flour- we can all make cookies at the drop of a hat whenever we want.
I’m not sure when it happened, this responsibility, this competence, this independence. It’s wonderful to watch the people I love come into their own, but it also makes me wistful to remember the previous versions of the people who once did not know it was possible to make mac and cheese on the stove, but are now capable of creating three course meals from scratch. It hasn’t yet been five years since I left college, so this realization seems like it’s coming too soon, but at the same time it feels like 30 years have passed since then.
Sometimes these tiny visions of clarity take over and make me proud and sad at the same time. I want to take each of their faces into my hands, trace over the budding crows eyes and smile lines and erase the long nights and broken hearts that have caused them. I want to soothe their worried looks, their lovelorn gazes, and their preoccupied minds. I want to remind them that we are still young and free of responsibility- that our parents are still in control of the world, and we still have time to explore and to wander. It’s not really true, but I can’t help it- I want so badly to freeze this moment in time, this exact moment before we lept up to accept our fates in a new world; this exact moment when we were filled with hopes and dreams that will soon be either realized, or come crashing down around us.
I’m beginning to understand how it is possible to have years go by in the blink of an eye.
weary traveler 