I'll Take the Memories

I left work early on Wednesday and followed a dear friend from Charlotte to her hometown of Cary, NC.  She's visiting NC from LA  where she currently lives. 

As we drove past my old Chapel Hill exit around 9 p.m., I felt the sudden urge to swerve right and travel down toward my old campus - somewhere I haven't been for nearly a year.  I could picture the soft glow of the lamp light in the quad, gleaming off the brick pathways that zigzag between brick buildings, hundreds of years old.  I could hear the laughter of friends as we walked home from a show and absorbed the rare silence of main campus. 

Now I go back to the fall of Freshmen year.  The rain as it pattered against my skin on the way home from a dance and the thrill when Nick grabbed my hand and began to twirl me around in the rain.  My bare feet feeling the smooth bricks and the cold puddles.  The interested stares of passersby.  The feeling that I was invincible.  That life could not possibly get better than this.

Then I skip to junior year, with all my suitemates piled on my bed as we chattered about the hot Spanish teacher or the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.  In the library where Casey and I whispered until we were nearly kicked out.  Sophomore year when my boyfriend told me to look in the glove box for a CD and I was surprised with my birthday earrings.  Senior year when I couldn't wait to get up in time for my 9 a.m. Shakespeare class because Professor Gless was just that amazing. 

All these memories and more skim across the sea of my mind and suddenly there are waves that spill out my eyes and down my cheeks.  I do not leave the interstate.  I am following Erika and that would be rude.  But my heart aches for a place that gave me the best four years of my life - at least up till now.  All the years since I began college have been wonderful, but there is a magic in those years that I don't believe will ever exist again. 

We make a pit-stop at the nearest mall to pick up a Christmas present for Erika's dad.  It was a frequent haunt junior and senior year.  It is where the girls and I saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 - the six of us forming our own sisterhood.  It is where I bought "the dress" that I had been eying for years and finally bought with their encouragement and a 50% off coupon from mom. Walking toward the Apple store, it is hard not having the five of them flanking my sides.