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I want to tell you about a place. I want you to go there with me, to stand beneath the concrete archway. But I don't have to tell you it's concrete, and I don't want you to have to see it the way I do.

I want to take you to a place, but it's a universal place. It's not Paris. It's not Rome. It's not Tokyo. It's high school.

I only have to say the words wrought-iron gate and concrete pillars, and I've got the high school entrance right in my mind. Of course I do, I walked through it every day for four years.

I don't want you to have to see that high school. I want you to see yours, or your best friend's or your husband's.

I want to tell you what happened to a young, slim, scared little girl when she went to high school. Though the setting in my mind is that semi-urban high school by the cemetary, you don't have to see it that way.

I want to take you somewhere. I want you to relate to the girl in the plaid skirt.

I don't want to spend pages and pages telling you about the green grass and the unheated winters.

I just want you to know it already.

Can you see it yet?

Compromise, Part 1

She doesn't know exactly who to turn to about this. Her mother gets teary eyed (but at least tells her to follow her heart). Other friends say things like, "I'll always be your friend, but there are red flags."

Maybe she's just not explaining herself well enough.

Because looking at it from the outside, sure, it looks bad. It looks like he's walked in and taken over her life, or, worse, that he's walked in, and she's handed it over.

That's not the case, at all.

She wanted a simple list of things:
*To fall in love
*To get away from her hometown

She's got the first one down, so what next?

She told him with great force in her voice, nearly in tears, sitting in a restaurant barely able to choke down the foccacia, that she wants to "get the hell out." She's not compromising; she's getting exactly what she wants.

She never settled on where she would go, and he offered a suggestion. Her request was vague. His was stable and specific.

Her friends do have a point. There was another man who offered, directly, to take her away with him. To have her as his wife and take her to Texas. And she was okay with that, for a brief moment.

This is one of those things that people judge her on, that this is not the first time she has considered someone the solution to all her problems.

But that was then. And this is real. The previous man was simply a fantastical solution to a wealth of issues. He was made of stardust and didn't even have one foot in reality. He was a temptation and a lesson, nothing more.

And if she had it to do again, well, she wouldn't have kept dating him.

But, when it comes down to it, maybe the people who once knew her best are basing their ideas on what they knew way back when. They're basing it on a girl who clung to her family. A girl who always went home on weekends. A girl who was afraid to go see what the world had to offer.

And maybe, just maybe, there are others who know her better, who understand her situation, who say things like, "compromise shows maturity."

Maybe she already has people who will listen to her worries.

Ever Expanding Family

She did believe, in some vague way, that whenever she got married, her husband would simply flow seamlessly into her own. She never thought about having to fit into his world, his family. It was as though she expected him to come from some great vacuum, eager - but not too eager - for family dinners, evenings out, backyard barbecues and all of the wrappings of an active family. She even has friends who insist that their spouses will, essentially, have to have no family of their own in order to properly assimilate into the demands of large family life.

It never occured to her that she would fall in love with someone who, while enjoying family, has no desire to acquire a new one.

But she has.

In some ways, she's been lost to her own family. Her parents wonder about her whereabouts. Her grandmother curiously calls and asks for updates. Her cousins, well, they vanished on their own long ago.

But she's creating her own family, building from the ground up, melding lives with someone completely different from herself.

So, she doesn't over commit him, although he generally does whatever she asks. She never tells her mother, "Yes, we'll be there." Recently, if it's something that matters enough, she'll commit herself, "I'll be there for sure, and I'll get back to you about him."

Her mother seems to appreciate this semi-commitment.

Mostly, she despises saying "Yes, sure thing, you can count on me," when she may very well have to place an apologetic phone call or write a suck-up e-mail later on down the road.

So, her new method seems to work.

Though it's new for her, and her observing family, to note that she can't just say yes, that she has to talk to someone else first, that she no longer seems in complete control over her time, of her life.

This is a deliberate move on her part. She has a tendency to move full-force through life, completely forgetting that anyone else might care about a decision she has to make, that there are people who would like to be consulted before she, say, rents an apartment, quits her job or books a hotel room. That is, there are people other than her mother who want to be involved in her thought process.

When she rented her apartment, she didn't tell him until she was moving in two days.

Now, months later, she consults him about an issue at work. Mostly, she's made up her mind about the course of action, but at least he thinks he's involved. And he, like her father always has, offers a unique perspective on the situation. At the very least, he will validate her choices.

He can fill some of the roles that her family long has, but he still will never fully integrate into her family.

He will never be her mother's son. He has his own mother, thank you very much, and, admittedly, he doesn't call her enough. He can't possibly take on another one.

Oh

So.

It's not just me.

You're here, too?

I'm not the only one.

Looking for answers.

Searching for truth.

Am I supposed to believe this isn't all about me?

That's new.

Give me a moment to get used to that.

Scared

Even now, what I fear is that you won't be able to love me enough.

That I will ask for much more than you can give.

That you will realize you don't have enough.

That you will walk away from someone who needs so much.

Even now, I fear that I will change for you and for me and then you will leave.

That I will be completely different, will have left family and friends behind.

That you will be gone, and I will have nothing.

Even now, I fear that I will leave for you, and I will need more.

That I will require too much, need too much of your emotions and time.

That I will never understand that what you give me is all you have to give.

Even now, I fear that you'll give up on me.

Ready or Not?

Each Sunday, he leaves. He returns to his side of the mountain, to a world she was working really hard at getting to know before he moved again. He moved a few months ago to a place where she's not comfortable staying overnight. There's not much to talk about when it comes to that. He knows it. She knows it. And there's nothing to be done about it.

So, more often than not, he's the one who leaves.

There are days when she's anxious for him to pack up his computer and head down the stairs to his sports car, ready to have her space returned to her, ready to have the sole bathroom available for only her use.

Especially on Sundays, she is ready for those few quiet hours before the hectic week begins, for the peaceful hours to herself. She reads. She cleans. She watches movies he doesn't want to see. She prepares herself for what she will face heading back to work on Monday.

Her contentment after his departure proves her budding theory that she is not ready to get married, that, in fact, after too many of those conversations that dance around marriage and kids, she feels slightly sick to her stomach, like she's eaten too much ice cream. It proves that they are not ready to get married (not that he's asked).

She sometimes finds herself getting anxious, eager for the time when she'll be one of the women looking at dresses and picking out colors, giggling with her bridesmaids. But that's a wedding, not marriage. She's not ready for marriage. She likes that he is her boyfriend, not her fiance, not her husband, but her boyfriend. She enjoys that he has his own apartment -- on his own side of the mountain.

If all of this is true.

If she is so content with the current situation.

Does it make sense for her, every Sunday night, to long for the time when neither of them has to leave?

Acceptance

She has finally begun to see that she will not have a life even remotely resembling the one she once envisioned:

A worthwhile job.
An adorable house.
An adoring husband.
Two or four or six kids running amuck.
All starting with a husband at 22.

Of course, the husband at 22 never materialized, and she's ridiculously grateful that she's had the intervening years to find herself, discover her identity. She would have made a horrible wife at that age and would likely not make a good one right now, not yet anyway.

After a series of hopeful comments and interesting discussions, she paused to think about the life she now sees for herself.

For the first time, there is a blank slate.

This is at once depressing and a great relief. There is no particular life towards which she is aspring. Certainly, she wants to get married (and specifically, she wants to marry him) and have children (his), but there is no outline for how this will occur, no deadlines, no specific script that must play out in order for her to obtain happiness.

"Have you ever struggled with wanting to be successful and than realizing that being happy could be the same as being successful?" She asked him.

"Yes." He said.

And with that word, she remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place.

Glimpses of herself in a charming cafe in Boston, New York, heck, even Chicago or what about Rome, dot her imagination, but they don't drive her. She once craved a life in New York City, the Big Apple, Manhattan Island, where she could prove her mettle and make it once and for all. She once craved, as Michael Cunningham said, more of the same, a life exactly like the one she imagined her parents had at the start of their marriage. A tiny house with a big back yard, lots of love and frequent barbecues in that big backyard.

She never envisioned a quiet apartment with the wind howling outside, sitting alone on her couch at 26, pondering her future. But she is fast understanding that, though she held onto it for years past its expiration date (should, in fact, have come to terms with it perhaps as many as ten years ago, when she started college with no boyfriend to her name and no clue as to what she wanted other than a husband), the life she envisioned for herself is not the one worthy of her, not the one meant for her.

She finds it a great relief to pause and consider the life in the future and realize that a life unscripted is the only way to live.

This unscripted life could be less than what she planned, but it will also be more. It will lead her places she never foresaw and others she would have eschewed as impossible as little as a year ago. It will be better. It will be worse. It will be the same. It will be different.

But, most of all, it will be hers.

Twice

He sat with the Starbucks coffee cup between his legs, "Wow, that's hot."

In the passenger seat, she maneuvered a few things and freed up the second cup holder, "Here." She reached over and took his cup, setting it in the holder, "We don't want you to boil your boys," she smiled teasingly.

"Nope." He kept his eyes on the road. "Or we could just have all girls."

A strange, hopeful feeling filled her. It was the first true time he had openly suggested that they would have children together, that the children he would have in the future would also be hers.

"Well, in that case," she jokingly reached for the hot coffee.

"Seriously, geckos tend to have girls when the eggs are kept over 80 degrees or something."

The moment passed, and they started talking about the lore of babies born in the summer mostly being boys.

But there had been the moment. And for today, that was enough.

Did He Really Just Say That?

Sitting in the drive through, waiting for cheap Mexican takeout.

She said, "It's my money, I can do what I want with it."

He said, "Yeah, but I'm not going to be that guy. I'm not going to be that guy who has his girlfriend pay for everything. And I still owe you from the last time."

"No, you don't. That money is gone, spent, gone. I'm not trying to be your Sugar Mama. It's more fun for me if you're there with me, so it's my money being spent on my enjoyment."

"Look, you're right. It's your money, so you can do what you want with it. Until we share a bank account, I have nothing to say about how you spend your money. But my money is mine, and I can do what I want with it, and I am going to pay you back."

Wait a minute, did the man who has so carefully avoided all mention of a future together just say, "Until we share a bank account..."???

A Shift in the Breeze

It was just a slight change, barely perceptable to the human eye.

No one but her would notice it. She notices because she knows him better than he thinks.

But something is different.

He's different.

He is there with her now. He believes that he will be there for a while. He didn't know just a few weeks ago what he wanted, what he believed. But now, now he knows.

And she can tell.

Erasing it All

She has found that she takes him places she's gone before. She takes him where she went with that other one, the too eager one with the cartoon face. She has to replace that guy with him, fill in the memories, reclaim her favorite places.

The funny thing is that her ex doesn't factor into a lot of things, only when she practically forces herself to think about the past does he enter into the picture at all. He's not a real element in her life anymore, nor should he be. He was a learning experience that lasted two and a half months and ended a year and a half ago. No reason to keep him around.

But.

She wishes that he had just a bit of that belief in fate that the ex did. That he would tell her that he wants to marry her and be the father of her children. She wishes that he were just a little of a believer in the magic of it all.

And then she stops herself and realizes that the the realistic romantic is the best kind of all.

When she marries him, it won't be blindly. When he decides he's ready, it will mean more than a spur of the moment, gut instinct kind of a decision. It will be real and lasting.

And it won't just be a fairytale she made up.

In those moments, when she remembers why she loves him, she's okay with the fact that she has to be the one to believe in magic.

Tickle on Your Neck

With the sounds of accented English coming from the family room, she stretches across her bed, trying with all her might to pay attention to those last few pages of the Bible. Well, it's not like she's reading Revelation, but she is finishing what will make her a woman who had read the entire Bible. Based on the memory of her college roommate practically swooning over it, she saved Song of Songs for last, a brief eight pages about a bride and groom about to embark on their life together. The man she hopes to someday marry sits at the dining table, clicking away on his computer.

The accented English comes from a bizarre movie told in four languages, none of them particularly well spoken. Nothing made sense.

In one scene, the Mexican-born artist living in France says in English, "I want you to touch my hair."

His London-born, French speaking love interest replies, also in English, "I can't do that."

With eight minutes to go in the movie, and feeling slightly batty, she can't really take it anymore, so she removes herself to the bedroom. The sunshine filtering through the window is slightly dulled by the few remaining clouds in the sky.

The combination of the dull sunshine, the piano-soundtrack, the foreign languages, the images she's seen in the bizarre movie makes her feel that if she looks up just at the right moment, outside of her window, she will see the place she wants to live next year. She's never seen it before, never been to that great mystery of a continent, so she doesn't know what she would see if she looks up, but she has a strong suspicion that it would look nothing like the parking lot of her apartment complex.

In fact, she has a feeling it would look like Australia. At that moment, with that music, and those voices and the strange images of the movie fresh in her mind, she feels right on the cusp of her future. She believes that she will feel this again, in a year perhaps, will feel it when she stretches across her bed in Australia and looks up at the window, knowing for a fact that if she does, she will see her next future.

Real Romance

"When did you know you loved me?" A beautiful, blonde woman in a carefully designed pink tanktop and perfectly fitting ivory colored pajama pants asks the man beside her.

"From the moment I saw you." The man, with a muscular build, wearing nothing but some old cargo shorts and a smile, says, staring into her bright blue eyes.

"Oh, puhlease!!" She scoffs at the television, tossing the remote against the pillows as she turnes off the late-night movie. She rolls her eyes and gets up off the couch.

"What?" He says, looking up briefly as she saunters over to the fridge to grab a cold bottle of water.

"This show is freakin' lame."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" His glance briefly wanders in her direction and then quickly returns to the computer screen.

"It wast just completely unrealistic, completely dull and just not at all what I would want in a relationsh..." She stops talking as she realizes he's once again engrossed in his game.

He looks up again, a sheepish grin on his face, "A relationsh?"

"Oh, now you're paying attention?" She feels a tiny bit of annoyance creep into her voice, though she's trying to control it. She doesn't care if he's playing his game, as she's told him a hundred times, what she cares about is just getting to be in the same room together.

"I'm like a cat." She'd told him.

"Huh?"

"I don't have to be pet all the time like a dog, but I just like knowing I'm in the same room as the people I care about, even doing my own thing. From time to time, you can wander over and pet my head, and I'll be happy."

He'd smiled his big open grin and hugged her.

Back in the present she looks at him, watches him decide whether she's really upset with him or just mildly irritated. Settling on the later, he says, "You don't want things to be fake in a relationship? If I had told you I loved you when I first saw you, you wouldn't have wanted that?"

"I've had that. I've dated a man who insisted he fell in in love with me the first time he saw me. I don't buy it."

"You don't want all of that romantic stuff?"

"You know I don't." She tucks her hair behind her ears, closes the door of the fridge and walks over to him. She gently kisses the top if his head, "I want you."

"Oohhh, so are you saying I'm not romantic?" He grins that lopsided smile that always gets to her.

"You're not going to get to me, Mister. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I don't like all of that fake nonsense. I like reality. I like honesty." She strides back over to the couch, sets her water bottle on the coffee table and reaches for her book, "So, go back to your video game." She says this without a trace of irritation in her voice, and she feels a shiver of pride in herself.

"Okay." He turns his attention back to his computer screen, sighs, shuts the laptop and walks over to the couch. "Move your feet."

She lifts her feet to allow him to sit down, and rests them back on his legs once he is seated. "Please would be nice."

"Move your feet, please. I want to make out with you now."

"I'm reading." She drops her gaze and stares at him, a half smile tilting her lips flirtatiously, or so she hopes.

"Yeah, but this is reality. And I know you'd rather make out with me than read." He looks her right in her eyes, and her stomach gives a little jump.

"It's a really good book," but the book in question is already sliding out of her hands onto the floor (she barely had time to replace the bookmark).

And she gives into the romance of the moment, realizes that if this is as much romance as she gets, then she's not going to waste any time.

Familiar Roles

It is undescribably true that our friends are the family we choose. Most of my closest friends, I have known for a minimum of five years. At this point, they know me far better than most of my blood family every will (with a couple of obvious exceptions). They ARE my family.

I have looked for most of my adolescent and adult life for the one person who will build a family with me, that one person with whom I will make a life. I have stood on the outskirts at many a party, watching as couples danced, as men flirted with women who weren't me. I've gone through patches of time when I was completely okay with than and others when the thought of an evening out as the lone unattached one broke my heart and encouraged me to stay home to watch Sex and the City or read a book. Generally, not wanting to be a crazy cat lady, I would go out and be the lone unattached one. I longed for the person I could call who would come to my rescue. For the person who would catch me when I fall and whom I could also save. I wanted a knight in slightly battle-worn armor, or at least someone brave enough and strong enough to come along on my crazy adventures.

And I've found him. And he's the family I will make. He's gradually melding into my blood family. The friend family takes more time, because we are built of memories and experiences that he doesn't share.

Before him, I was still here, still sitting with an aching heart as I watched my friends pair off, fall in and out of love. I have been here all along. I have had weekends spent going to Costco fourteen times with my parents (possibly a slight exaggeration), and no one called me then. No one fought for my attention when there was plenty to give.

I sometimes feel that my friends are waiting for me to fall back into the role of the unattached one. They were comfortable with that, comfortable hearing my wacky dating tales. I also believe that, at times, they think of him as another of my two-week long romances that crashes and burns before anyone even meets the guy.

It's not a year, it's not 10 years, it's not a shared adolescence or even one college formal attended as a couple. It's a simple sharing of life with none of the trappings of school.

It's "only" been six months, but, to me, and to him, that's a long time. And besides, a lifetime together, the building of a family together, has to start somewhere. Why not here?

Welcome to the Row

The worlds most obvious sorority girl stood in front of Jackie, delicately running her fingers over the row of tiny, pink pearls draped around her neck.

"So, Jackie, tell me why you want to join my sorority."

I don't, thought Jackie, and then she wondered at the ego of this woman to believe that every single one of the 700 girls going through sorority recruitment wanted to be in this particular chapter. "Well, I am new to the notion of a big campus...my high school class had about 200 kids, and I'm ready to make some lasting friendships here."

"Oh." TWMOSG pursed her lips. "Well, tell me what you think friendship means."

"I don't think I understand the question," Jackie smoothed her hands over her khaki skirt, wishing fervently that she'd gone ahead and worn her favorite sundress. At least that one covered her knees and made her feel less conscious of how she sat, stood and walked.

"You say that you're looking for friendship. How do you think friendship here will be different than in high school." TWMOSG almost spat out the last two words, so far was she from those homework laden days.

"It doesn't have to be different." Jackie spoke quietly, her voice gradually getting stronger, "I have friends from high school that I intend to keep all my life, but they don't go to this school. I don't know yet how the friendships here will be different. I haven't even started classes yet!"

"I see. Yes, I want you to realize that being in a sorority is a COMMITMENT. That it will take time out of your day, your week, your life. The friendships you make here will change the way you see yourself. They will make you who you will be in your future." TWMOSG batted her long lashes and stared at Jackie.

Jackie opened her wide, blue eyes and looked right into the narrow green slits that passed for TWMOSG's eyes,"I know that a sorority will change my life. But I know who I am and who I want to be. I don't know much about sororities, since no one in my family has ever been in one, but I do know that I want to live with and be friends with the kind of women who will accept me, respect me and value me. And I want to feel the same way about them."

"Interesting." TWMOSG sighed as she glanced anxiously around the room for her replacement in the recruitment rotation.

Soon another woman arrived, this one wearing the same tight black pants and jewel-toned top of the first, "Hi!! I'm Casey! It's my turn to talk to you!"

TWMOSG stared at Casey, "Yeah, be a little more obvious. I'm going to go get some lemonade. It was so nice to meet you Jackie. Good luck with your recruitment. And I mean that. Best of luck." She turned and walked towards the kitchen, walked in, and let the huge oak door slam behind her.

"Well, she can be a bit picky! She's our president!" Casey smiled freakisly at Jackie and waited for a response."

"Lucky you," she said out loud.

Remember, you asked for this, she said to herself.

Observations on Toddlers

Standing in the library, she watches as the toddlers and babies, okay, mostly the toddlers, make their way around the space in that funny little way they have.

There's a little girl, with a neat braid, wearing a cute little sweatsuit, attempting to skip. You can just see the kind of girl she's going to be when she grows up. She's going to match her purse to her shoes. She's going to get her hair cut evey six weeks, but for now, she's just going to skip in a way that makes her look she's about to fall over.

There's a little blond boy. His mother brings him into the library each week. She dresses him in the preppiest clothes she can possibly find. Little sweater vests and khaki pants. Topsiders. Topsiders on a four year old! This kid is either going to be grow up to be a Republican, a Protestant or very, very gay. Or maybe he'll rebel and become emo or punk or whatever is popular when he's a teenager.

Then there are the usual rag-a-muffin kids, the ones who look more like her when she was little. Their clothes may or may not match, and not because their parents' don't buy them matching clothing, but because you can see who won the fight of "But it's my FAVORITE shirt" that morning. Their hair is a mess. They run. They yell. They ask "Why?" repeatedly. They are just your average, every day KIDS.

Some might wonder why it's not the babies she notices, but the babies don't turn around and wave as they walk away. The babies don't walk around like little old, angry men. The babies just don't have that certain toddler joie de vivre. The babies are also tucked into their carriers, being held by their parents and still just not quite old enough to ask for crayons at the reference desk.

And it's not the babies that make her feel almost ready to be a mother. It's the toddlers, with their over-abundance of personality that make her look forward to the moment when she brings her own mis-matched three year old into the library for storytime. It's the toddlers that make her curious about who her children will be and excited to meet them, whenever they should see fit to make their appearance.

Wasting Away

There's nothing like sitting in a hot tub with three strangers and your boyfriend to make you think about life.

No seriously.

Sitting in a jet-less tub with her boyfriend of less than half a year, surrounded by two women he's known since junior high and one guy who's married to one of the women, she had a thought.

None of us are as young as we used to be.

It's true, of course, that they are all still young, still safely on the young side of 30, but just old enough to start realizing that youth is wasted on the young. Did any of the women appreciate their bodies when they were younger? Before they settled into the routine of jobs and having fun almost exclusively on weekends, did they appreciate what they had going for them?

She certainly didn't. Only now does she enjoy the fact that a man enjoys looking at her body.

They are not yet 30 but are already getting older. There is a thickening around the waist and a thinning of the hair for the guys, a certain jiggle to the thigh and wrinkle to the eye for the ladies.

One girl is tired by 11 and wants to "get up early." Another who wishes the jets would just start already. And she wishes she could avoid the 8:30 start time at work the next morning.

She thinks about her own friends, the lives they're leading right this minute, and she's incredibly grateful that she's finally, finally figured out how to have fun.

Because she would hate to hit 30, looked back and realize she spent way too much time worrying about finishing work, preparing for the future and ignoring the good stuff in life. We all need to be the cricket and the ant...or whatever that story was...

A Day

Today is a day when I want to drive my car around all day, not being responsible for a single thing.

Today is a day when I realize that I'm still the restless person I've been all along, that I haven't really settled down in any way.

Today is a day when I feel fifteen, anxiously awaiting the announcement that will free me from the school day early and let me board the bus and head to a swim meet. Probably the first of the season.

Today is a day when the wind against my skin feels amazing.

Today is a day when I want to move to Texas and care about high school football.

Today is a day when I want to move to New York City, wear high heels without falling down, drink a mocha latte at three in the afternoon and stay out all night with my dark, moody boyfriend. Or better yet, my handsome, successful artist boyfriend. Moodiness is overrated.

Today is a day when I see children running around, and I feel grateful that I don't have a child yet but hopeful that I will have one in the future.

Today is a day when I deal with the ramifications of having dreamt that I had a daughter named Serena.

Today is a day when it feels unneccessarily cruel to make me stay indoors until 9 p.m.

Today is a day when I want to work in a bubble, in a safe, corporate office where I don't have to deal with snoring or screaming homeless people.

Today is a day when I want to not know that there are still people who need to shop at the 98 cent clearance center, because they have to.

Today is a day when I want to believe that everyone in the world climbed out of the need to have K-Mart layaway at the same time my family did.

Today is a day that I remember that though we were neither incredibly poor nor even remotely upper middle class, we have overcome some financial difficulties.

Today is a day I do not want to go back to how things used to be.

Today is a day when I realize I'm not entirely done finding myself.

Snippets

Walking across Lower Sproul Plaza, late on an early September night. It's still warm, still that completely un-PC term of Indian Summer. There's a hint of a breeze. I almost wish I had a sweater, but I'm warm on the inside. I've just finished filling out my "preference card" for sorority recruitment (AKA Rush). I am a college freshman. I'm wearing a white t-shirt and a blue and white plaid "skort" (I'll soon learn why this is unquestionably not something I should ever wear in public). I've got on my favorite sandals, the leather soft and supple but the shoes still in good condition (unlike my favorite flip-flops, which have retired to my parents' garage), and my legs are long and tan. I can feel the breeze on my arms - also tan from a season of swim team and a summer in the sun. I feel beautiful. I feel like I'm in college.

That moment, that quiet, dark night, the campus belongs to me. Berkeley is mine and mine alone.

Heading to class, walking through the Eucylaptus grove, watching my feet on the flagstone path, I think about how one day, one distant day, I will walk that path with my husband, my child. That moment. Well, those multiple moments, belong completely to me. I breathe in the fresh smell of the trees. I feel my feet on the hard, cold ground. I brush autumn's leaves out of my path.

Late afternoons, walking up Bancroft Avenue, heading to the sorority that I chose and that chose me, I hear the sounds of people yelling, talking, living. I walk, sometimes hunched over with the weight of my backback, sometimes fresh and happy, eager for the evening ahead. All of Berkeley belongs to me.

Crowded in the bathroom. Hurrying around my own bedroom, curlers, hair dryers, makeup, clothes, scattered around the room. Making that wonderful mess that is getting ready for a party. Curling someone else's hair (even if she ended up not liking it later). Zipping dresses. Dancing around to whatever pre-party music someone had chosen. The smell of at least six different perfumes and a dozen different hairsprays permeating the air. Twenty different stereos playing throughout the house, creating a mix no DJ would ever attempt. Those memories, those moments, belong to us all.