Daily Newsie

Tonight I stumbled upon some information about an old friend from college, which got me thinking about other old friends from college, which led to a frenzy of Googling until I’d figured out what (almost) everyone is up to now. Those were the days, when I was always running off to New York City (but always too broke to really enjoy it), meeting exciting people who knew things, wandering the streets until I was sure I knew my way around. It was close enough to my alma mater that some of my friends moved there after college — as did one of my favorite professors, the first educator to really tell me I was good at what I did — so even after The Ex-Boyfriend from NYC and I broke up I still had plenty of excuses to go there. I remember so much about it — O’Lunney’s on Times Square, crossing my fingers to get picked for the Avenue Q ticket lottery (no luck), the little Italian restaurant a boy took me to (where I had asparagus for the first time), hailing a cab by myself and then sitting in the backseat frozen with uncertainty. They were thrilling, terrifying, tumultuous times. I had my heart broken in NYC … but several months later it had nearly healed again, against the same backdrop of the Empire State Building but with a different person by my side.

Of course, it wasn’t nearly all that fuzzy and warm. I recall sitting hunched on a couch in what I thought were nice clothes, surrounded by strangers who didn’t even try to talk to me once they figured out I wasn’t one of them. I have never been ashamed of my background, my education, or my hometown, but sitting there watching leggy, tan blondes and brunettes adjust their labeled couture and discuss politics in haughty voices, I felt like the biggest country mouse ever. I struggled to remember which fork was which at pretentious restaurants that cost a staggering amount of money — always someone else’s, but that didn’t make me any less uncomfortable. It was glamorous and lovely, but I didn’t fit in at all.

That whole phase of my life seems so long ago. I miss it sometimes, and I wonder, too, what would happen if I were to go back. But, ah — you can never go back. Sitting here in my little Kentucky apartment — midway through my master’s degree, surrounded by great friends and a wonderful family, enjoying a blossoming awareness of the political world, and blissfully using whichever fork I want — I’m pretty convinced that’s a good thing.