The Nightdreamers

A major part of my adolescence was spent discussing the future. For the first two years of high school, my three friends and I would hang out, drink whatever cheap beer we could get our hands on, and assuredly talk about how great things were going to be for us someday soon.  The parties, the girls, the insanity of teenagedom that would rival any fictitious account of youth.  It was all going to happen when we could drive.  That's the way it was supposed to be at least.  Unfortunately, it didn't really go down as we planned it.  Those coveted licenses that were supposed to be the key to our foursome's triumph, well, they ironically became the vehicle in leading us apart.

There was one night though, before the chain inevitably broke.  We didn't have our licenses, but we did drive. Off the road and onto farmland in the middle of the night.  Under the moonlight and the headlights of a minivan, we drank cheap beer and gazed towards a creek.  Like every other night, we talked about how great things were going to be.  But for a split second, I think we realized that this was the moment to hang onto.  There would be plenty of parties, girls, and insanity, but right then and there, it was about us.

Don DeLillo wrote that "nostalgia is product of dissatisfaction and rage. It's a settling of grievances between the present and the past." While it's true that I grieve for the past and long to once again clasp onto that fleeting moment, I also believe a night like that should never be forgotten.