She took the midnight train going anywhere.

[judecorp]

I miss being completely free, which, for me, means college. I miss living in a dorm. No, that's not quite right. I miss the ability to unpack my entire living space in one day, to pack up my entire area and fit it into a car. I miss knowing that every treasure I prized fit in one small space, every trinket, every book, every item easily visible and thus easily accounted for. I miss broadcasting my life on four walls and a door. It felt like my entire persona could have been demonstrated with thumbtacks and tape, photographs and cut-outs.

I miss the mobility of those years, too. Wistful thinking brings me to days when I could decide, spur of the moment, to fly somewhere, drive somewhere, bus somewhere, train somewhere. No plans. No saving. No sick days. Classes were bypassed simply by not showing up, by collecting someone else's notes. Every night was a potential weekend. Where I slept was not a problem - couch or bed or floor or chair, as long as there was some sort of roof, everything was fine.

I regret a bit that I never took the opportunity to leave the country at that time, but at the same time, I don't feel like I've missed out terribly. I was an incredibly mobile coed - there was no method of transportation I did not utilize, no trip I neglected. Though it frightened my mother, I spent four years traipsing the continent visiting names on a screen, voices on the telephone. And if I could, at this moment, I would stuff my belongings into my car and do it all again.

In 1994, I took the bus to Baltimore, Maryland to meet an internet boy. He had sent me photographs. He was cute. He could juggle. He was intelligent. He was 21 to my mere 18. He picked me up at the Greyhound station and took me to Towson. Two days. Two of the longest days of my life. I was the second person he'd ever kissed, and he had the zeal of a middle school pupil. "Geoff, I want to take a shower and go out." "Oh, come on, one more kiss." "Alright, fine. Can I take a shower now?" "I meant one kissing /session/." "Go away." Thankfully, time always progresses, and I did eventually get to return to the haven that was Hofstra and my Jodie. I walked into our marvelous dorm room, Suffolk Hall #612B, and kissed the brown industrial carpeting. Home, glorious home!

My life is a scrapbook of experiences, stories like that one, little snippets of adolescent history, youthful freedom. Go on. Think back. Tell me one of yours. :)

Comments

[mightywombat.livejournal.com]

I feel that wanderlust sometimes... I've always been too much of a homebody to really act on it, though. It's too bad. I'm sure I could make a decent road bum...

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

You should come visit MEEEEEE! (again)

[gibson.livejournal.com]

JOURNEY!!!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

[gibson.livejournal.com]

:O

breaks

[vorpalbla.livejournal.com]

I miss having 3 weeks of winter break during college. 3 weeks during which there was nothing left undone that would pile up. Even when I've saved up the vacation days to go somewhere, the nature of the job I have now is that it will mean a)more work for my co-workers while I'm gone, and b)a lot of catching up when I return.

Re: breaks

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I feel guilty when I've missed one day of work. This summer I'm going to try to take some vacation. We'll see how it goes.

I miss school breaks, too.

[mermil.livejournal.com]

I miss the feeling I had senior year at Wesleyan when I came back to school at the end of the summerand I was living with my favorite people in a house with a porch...the year before had been a long, hard year and it felt so good to be with people I loved and trusted, and had a good time with. I remember the last week of August, 1995 as being filled with sunlight, frivolous shopping trips, running around outside, and eating at diners.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

That sounds wonderful. I want a vacation where I go back in time. :) Wanna come with?

friendster

[grrlpower.livejournal.com]

hey girliee, we obviously need to get together, based on yer testimonial on friendster. My hair has become incredibly long and unruly and refuses to spike... :/ haven't decided yet if I am going to let it win the fight and grow it out, or chop it off.

Re: friendster

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I may have to change my testimonial. :) But that's okay, because I can find other goofy things to say about you. Don't worry, I have an endless supply!

Re: friendster

[grrlpower.livejournal.com]

eeeeek. the darned thing wont even upload my pic, perhaps b/c it believes I have spiky hair when in fact I do not.

Re: friendster

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I've found that the website has a lot of problems. It's very slow, and sometimes doesn't work at all. Perhaps the beta test was to check the servers, and if so, obviously THEY NEED SOMETHING BETTER! :)

But I prefer to think it's revolting because of your hair.

Re: friendster

[grrlpower.livejournal.com]

my hair is revolting???!!?!?!?!? thanks! :(

Re: friendster

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Errr, no. The /website/ is revolting.

You asked for it...

[kjtoo.livejournal.com]

I spent a little over three years in college (Go Huskies!), but never stayed in a dorm. My parents lived - and still live - about twenty-six miles from the campus, so I commuted.

I guess you could say I led a sheltered life, because until the year before I left Tech (or Tech decided they didn't want me anymore, take your pick) I didn't do much in the way of roaming. I was a counselor at a ten day summer camp for mentally handicapped kids, and I took a trip to CMU as a coach for the Special Olympics, but other than that I really didn't get away from home much, and never really on my own.

Things changed in 1993, and I made a couple of solo trips to northwest Ohio late that year and early in '94. In November of '94, I packed up everything I could fit into my car and moved to northeast Ohio.

I did spend a couple of nights in a dorm room in Darrow Hall at Bowling Green State University in 1993, though. The first night, there were four of us in that room, and me the only "boy." One of the non-boys slept on the floor and claims that I got up at some point during the night and stepped on her. I can recall doing no such thing, but she said a male voice apologized to her, so either it was me or we had a nocturnal visitor. Probably the former, as I am a notorious sleepwalker.

I keep in touch with exactly one person with whom I went to college, and of the people in that BGSU dorm room, I know where one is right now.

I'm not sure if this was a tale of youthful freedom or not. When I look back at that first trip to Bowling Green, the first time I was really "on my own," I think it was really as free as my youth got.

Re: You asked for it...

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Hey, nostalgia is nostalgia. Everyone's is different. Everyone's freedom is different, too.

Case in point: My mother used to always give me shit about running around visiting people from the internet, living in different states every summer, going wild. But she was just jealous. I mean, she didn't go to college, she got married instead. And never really left her home area.

*shrug* As long as your memories are happy ones, whether you keep in touch with the people who made them or not is kind of irrelevent. I think, anyway.

[kungfoogirl.livejournal.com]

I've got lots of stories. You know lots of them, I think. I mean, we ran in similar circles for so long, just barely missing each other.

One of my more favorite stories is my trip to the Rollex in Lexington, Kentucky. The Rollex is a three-day equestrian event. And since this was 1994 or so, it was the Olympic qualifiers, as well. Since I was a neophyte to the whole equestrian subculture, I was eager to see the Rollex that year.

A few days before it was supposed to start, a friend of mine decided that we should go. So we packed up a few things, begged a few dollars from the parents, and drove from New Wilmington, PA to Lexington. We lived in her car for the next four days. We rented a small camping space and locked the doors.

The eventing was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. If I'd gone to that event just a few years earlier, I'd have never gone to college, and I'd have headed straight for an equestrian academy. It was THAT amazing.

On the way home, we ran out of gas, and wound up getting a ride to the gas station with this incredibly creepy man and this woman that didn't really know him. It was very stupid of us, but it made sense at that moment. In the end, it was all ok. And it sure made for an interesting story when we got back to school.

I miss those days too. If I find myself listening to too much Jimmy Buffett, I know it's time to take a trip. Otherwise I get cabin fever pretty bad. So....I feel ya on this one. =)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I think of the summers I spent at Philmont, how wonderful they were. How I would put all of my stuff in storage and live out of a tent for three months, meeting new people. I remember the second summer, the anticipation of seeing some repeat people, and how exciting it felt to feel like a part of something big.

I remember the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the beautiful vistas, the smell of the Ponderosa Pines, the water gurgling at Old Abreu, the view from the Tooth of Time... gods. Everything was so crisp and so poignant and so real. I crave going again, but it's Boy Scouts. Not really a good place for me.

Philmont is in my heart and that will never change. It's funny how life happens when you're busy living. It's amazing how much growth happens when you're just experiencing. I feel like I've had the privilege of leaving parts of myself all over the US, and taken little parts of it all back with me.

Long winded... sorry!

[pica-nc.livejournal.com]

Ah, feeding the nomad in us all...

My high school years were all about journeys. At the end of my junior year, I went to Switzerland for a youth cultural exchange. I rode trains, biked for days through village after village, fell in love twice, confessed my darkest fears, jumped off bridges, hiked mountains, ice climbed... nothing seemed impossible. Nothing stopped me. I didn't need money, I didn't need to be pretty. Everything was a journey.

My months spent there came at the cost of being completely affixed during community college. I worked at a nuclear generating station as well as a small newspaper, though... my journeys were no longer physical, they tested the limits of my mind, my ethics, my morals.

My best memories today (at this moment, lol) are of Fridays when I was in CC. "Fridays" meant we were out of classes at noon. They were afternoons filled with thrown together lunches, usually in someone's living room, computer room or the garage at my parents house. Late afternoons were dedicated to getting home, making plans, reuniting for evenings filled with training for bike races, working out at the gym, movies, computer games, late nights spent laying the beds of pickup trucks under desert skies.

The rest of the weekends never mattered as much as those lazy Fridays. They were replaced when I went to university... Fridays started Thursday nights, with tons of friends, eating here, drinking there, this party, that show...

But, god, when the sun is warm and the air is cool, I can close my eyes and feel Friday afternoons all around me.

Re: Long winded... sorry!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

But, god, when the sun is warm and the air is cool, I can close my eyes and feel Friday afternoons all around me.

The piece of time I like to imagine in my mind when I wander is Provincetown last March. Jennifer and I rented a room in a bed and breakfast and escaped together. We were still doing distance then, and it was a good 5 days or so that we were alone, experiencing each other. We were so new to each other back then, in certain ways at least.

I had been in Ohio for two years by that point, and the ocean, the one stable thing in my life for all the years previous, was horribly missing. For several days, I was able to eat by the shore, hear the waves, smell the salt, see the gulls. I walked along the sand and found sea glass and shells. I touched the frigid water and let it dry out my skin. The sun reflected on the water which reflected on my dark hair.

At night we built fires and loved each other well, and those were wonderful times, but nothing beats making angels in the sand on the dunes in P-town.

p.s. Don't apologize for being long-winded. I asked for journeys. :)