Reuniting

Tonight I had dinner with Laurel. I haven't seen her in over a year, the last being when I left for LA in May of '09. Laurel was the first person I saw the day before my departure. She left for Prague after a summer in NYC, for a year.

We went to Brooklyn to Sel De Mer.

I had been thinking of Laurel lately. Remembering our nights in LA before college, going to parties, and her driving my car home when I was too drunk to drive. Vegan dinners at our favorite restaurant: Real Food Daily. Screaming at the top of our lungs late at night when the roads were vacant, singing to our favorite song at the time, Heartbeats by the Knife. Our first weeks in New York, finding boxes on the street and playing in them. Laughing so hard my stomach hurt while we entertained ourselves while waiting for the train to take us back into Manhattan. Our nights at Rubulad, drinking absinthe, eating pot brownies. That time when we went to Barnes and Noble to research 'The Game', was hit on by an old professor, and left him with 2 copies of that book on his table. My 19th birthday bash in a 4 story Soho apartment with a hot tub on the terrace and $1500 of booze and a bouncer, where 400 people showed up when I had made out a list of 100. Laurel brought Indian food for birthday dinner beforehand.

Laurel and I discussed how when we left LA we were so tired of it, and for a few years we were both in love with NYC and thought we could spend our lives there. Now, we've both reached a point when we're tired of NYC and slowly, LA is growing on us. It is a sanctuary now, we both go back and don't see that many people while we're there- it's a needed break, a moment for reflection. It was nice to know that she felt the same way.

Seeing her made me realize how much we've both grown, and our mistakes along the way with people, friends, boyfriends, have all been for a good reason, because we now know what it is we're looking for. Travelling abroad has shown us who our real friends were coming back. Often those that you'd think would be most excited to see you when you're back are often times the ones that don't care at all because now you're "irrelevant". Boys we once thought could mean a lot turn out to not mean anything at all. Friends who have stuck by you, but feed you negativity constantly, are ones you have to cut out. These are sad realizations, but necessary ones.

This is an interesting time, when everyone we've known and grown up with is now doing separate things entirely. Laurel offered me some great, and much needed, perspective on longevity of interests.

Before parting, she said to me, "Can you believe that in the next few years people that we know will be getting married and having children?"

I couldn't believe it. How fast life is moving. How much we change and don't notice. How even though in the moment of a mistake, I experience extreme lament, it's all for a good reason later.

After I left to go back to Manhattan, everything shifted back into perspective, and I realized that life is a beautiful thing. We each get what is meant for us, and we get what we want if we want it enough.