Rearview Mirror

I work out at my carpool partner’s apartment because she has all sorts of exercise equipment, including an elliptical machine, weights, and other such torture devices. The only thing that keeps me from quitting and grabbing the nearest bag of Doritos is watching TV series while we exercise. Distraction is the key for me (kind of like with small children). Some of the recent favorites have included The State Within, Wire in the Blood, and MI5 (all British). We’ve also thoroughly enjoyed Veronica Mars, Deadwood, and Entourage. God bless Netflix. Right now we’re watching Felicity because so many people seem to love it and I don’t think I caught a single episode while it was on the air.

Ah, young love and the confusion, embarrassment, and drama of the college years. It’s so great to be reminded of that time in life. In yesterday’s episode, Felicity and Ben were robbed at gunpoint (“How New York,” she says!) and end up talking all night, like “war buddies.” Those all-night conversations are deeply familiar. You feel so excited that someone is so interested in you that they just can’t go to sleep. You see the dawn and feel like you’ve transcended into another place of profound connection. When really, if you could hear yourself at that age talking about things like Plato’s Republic, your roommate’s bizarre schedule, and how unfair it is that your history professor refuses to give anyone As, you’d pretty much want to stab yourself in the eye.

But there’s something wonderful about those kinds of moments. You feel special and alive. You want so badly for the other person to feel the same way you feel about them, and you figure they must, because they spent all night talking with you—the next day’s exam be damned. It’s all just very sweet, the revealing of one’s self to another in the middle of the night. My skin zings with energy from the emotional memory of it. I think about how I’ll probably never have that moment again and it’s okay, because I’ve ready been there. But I do marvel at universal experiences like those and wonder what is yet to come my way that I don’t know about yet. Sometimes life is just yummy.