In my blog post about the Descendants I mention at the end how I sort of created this future memory for myself. That is, after watching that scene at the end I decided that I would have such a moment in my life someday, and I became nostalgic for a memory that has not yet happened. The thing is, I have a lot of these future memories. I look forward to the rest of my life avidly and I have so many ideas about how I want it to be. Does anyone else do that?
Last night I had this beautifully displacing moment where I created a future/present memory that fulfilled that anticipatory nostalgia. I was driving to the airport with Matt to pick up his roommate. It was late at night, the windows were down and my hair was blowing like crazy, my feet were up on the dash, and Matt was, in his words, "indoctrinating [me] in some of the best music on earth". That is, he was playing me his favorite songs by New Model Army, telling me how he felt about them when he was in high school. It was warm outside and there was a great big, orange, half moon rising over the mountains.
Are you ever in the midst of a moment and, just for a flash, you slip outside of yourself and look at where you are and what you're doing and realize that everything is perfect? Sitting in that car, listening to Matt talk about how much he loved this song and the next song and the next song, with the warm wind....it was a perfect moment. I was absolutely happy.
And then, it was like I slipped even further back and looked at my life like a story rather than a living breathing series of events. This moment I was in, it was the sort of moment that people write about in stories or try to depict in movies-- a sort of Platonic Form of a College Memory. The sort of fabricated "memories" that you almost resent in stories because they're too perfect and too staged and they make you long for things that aren't really even real. And yet, here I was living in one. I knew, in that second, that this was the sort of thing that I would look back on, when I have kids getting ready for college, and I would tell them about it to explain to them why college is such a wonderful place and they should be so excited to go there. And they wouldn't really understand, but I would glow a little bit within myself remembering how happy I was.
After that my night continued to be utterly lovely. On the way back from the airport we progressed from New Model Army to They Might Be Giants, and then to Nickel Creek. Matt and I both love this song and we sang it with enthusiasm. Then, because Matt's roommate Brenden wanted to thank him, we tried to find a Wendy's that was open. We succeeded at the third one. Over salted fries and vanilla frosty...
Then we came back to my beloved Campus Plaza and we sat in front of my apartment in the twilight glow of the lamps and we talked. Matt is leaving soon. In fact he is leaving on Friday, though he will come back a few times before he leaves forever at the end of the month. I can't begin to explain how much I will miss him. He's been my best friend, one of the best I've ever had. And I'm sure we will continue to be good friends, but it won't be the same. He won't live 30 feet away. He will live two thousand miles away. So when we stay up till 3:30 talking I appreciate every second of it. And I guess that's how I want to end this post. With a dedication to Matt (though he'll probably laugh at me for this) and a thank you. I know it's rather wretchedly sentimental. But thanks, Matt, for listening to me whine, and for trusting me so much, and for introducing me to Avatar, and for laughing at Frasier with me, and talking to me, and just for being you.
:)
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