Why can't it be like it was?

"Well tonight was really MY night." Anyone? Anyone?

Today I had the sheer delight of not leaving my apartment. You know those days? So good.

I wasn't out amongst the masses which may give me less perspective on what to right...but I am sure I can make it happen for us (me).

I am a very nostalgic person. I don't know where it comes from inside me, but maybe telling you about it will illuminate something.

I don't think I like to live in the past. In New York City it is very hard to do. When the rent is due every month you gotta keep your head in the game every day. Just a little tip from me to you...don't say I never gave you anything.

Tonight I watched the movie Premonition with Sandra Bullock. You probably haven't seen it...and I don't mean it in that obscure hipster way...but in the fact that its one of those movies that slipped through our collective consciousness. The story of the movie is not relevant to this post, but my first viewing of it is.

Now I have dealt with some shit in my life. I believe we all have, but I have really been through it. My senior year of high school my family went through a very hard and ugly period of transition. But out of that I have some very fond memories right next to the very ugly ones that I have yet to be able to get rid of. My dad had lost the job he had been at for seventeen years; since I was born. So in the interim while he was looking for a new permanent position he drove ninety(ish) miles to the church he preached out before we moved to Missouri. He would spend half the week there and half the week with us. The first night he went...I wanna say it was a Sunday, but that seems wrong to me we were all sad. Sad that he was leaving, that mom was sad, that shitty people did shitty things to us and put us in this shitty situation. My sister's boyfriend who was not good for much (sorry Allison), but came through for us that night. He got the idea to order two Tuscani pastas from Pizza Hut (remember when those were a thing?) and said we should watch Premonition. Now the subject matter of that movie is not the greatest idea for sad people or a woman who is missing her husband, but again, not the point. We all hung out in my mom's bedroom. Me, my mom, Kristine, Allison and her boyfriend. And I don't remember a lot of details of that night, but I remember loving the experience of watching the movie, and it being sad, but beautiful in its sadness. And I remember being together, and I remember being a little less sad.

I have watched this movie once or twice since then, and tonight was the first night in a few years. I watched it with a friend who had never seen or heard of it. He was very disappointed in the ending, and I was too. I was watching it and thinking "Why do I like this movie? I thought it ended better than this..." But it was the memory that I loved...not the movie.

I guess my life up to this point has been pretty great. I've been alive for nearly twenty-four years. That is nearly 8,760 days. When I think of the deep pain I have felt and witnessed in my life it probably doesn't even fill up a full 365 days. So I guess I should count my blessings.

I do miss a life where I didn't have to make so many decisions. When you're in high school you do your homework or your get punished, you do your chores or you get grounded, etc. Once I graduated high school my life really became mine. Yeah...my parents paid for it and I won't deny that. But I went off to school and was able to live my life the way I wanted it to be lived (freedom!) But with that comes specific obligations (Ever After? Anyone?) My first year out of school I have questioned almost daily the decisions I have made since I made my first own decision of what college to go to and what field to go into (another post for another time).

Life is anything but simple. I don't think we want it that way...not yet at least. But do I ache for simpler times? Absolutely.