nostalgia

Well I am currently at my parents' house in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Let me tell you a little bit about Bradford County. There are lots of: cornfields, people wearing camo, deer, amish people, and folks who are missing their teeth. It's a miracle that I escaped from this place. It's an even bigger miracle that anyone could actually escape from 1) marrying someone from my high school class (which had 64 people in it by the way), 2) getting knocked up and then marrying the guy that knocked them up, 3) becoming a raging conservative who shoots lots of deer and "chews." How am I actually from this place? Anyways..


On a whim, I sent an email to my friend Ashley before I left. We have been friends since high school - we went to different schools but we had our horses at the same stable. We drifted apart when I went to college (she was a year behind me in school) and since then, she has been in an out of the area. But she is currently living with her parents and taking classes while waiting for her boyfriend (who is from South Africa) to be approved for a Visa, so I figured I should try to catch up with her.

I drove over to her parents' cottage which is like 5 mins from my parents' house, and we wound up going to this townie bar (is there anything other than that in an area like this?) called PJs. I spent a LOT of time at PJs the summer after college - like 5 nights a week.. but it was completely dead last night. Apparently there were 2 weddings in town. We caught up, then we crashed a party that friends of ours were at. Someone handed me a can of Lions Head beer. I saw my friend Luke that I haven't seen in probably 1.5 years. But this party was gross and reminded me of a crappy house party from college. We bailed at 12 am.


Things have just changed so much since when Ashley and I were best friends. We were inseparable. I would stay at her cottage for days at a time.. we would go ride our horses and then go back to her house and jump in the lake. We were young, I was 17, she was 15, but we would go scouting for boys. We were always going on adventures in the white minivan that I drove. But that's the problem with a place like this. You live here and you know of nothing else. But then you leave, and when you come back, it's totally different. The magic (so to speak) is gone. Everyone who made it fun is gone. I suppose that is just what happens in life. As we grow and move through different stages of our lives, friends come and go, places that were once fun are now just happy memories.

However, it is always good to catch up with an old friend.