20 years is a long time!

This past weekend, I traveled to the East Coast for my 20th college reunion - crazy!  I kept asking myself the rhetorical question "How did this happen?".  Jeez, 20 years seems like a very long time to have graduated from college.  The list of personal, national and international events that have occurred since then is fairly lengthy. 

When my alma mater first contacted me about the reunion, I had my doubts about going.  I'd conveniently skipped the 5th, 10th and 15th, partly because, for the first decade of post-college life, weddings and other events seemed to bring classmates back together, so I could catch up with people and hear about their careers, families and interests.  That era seems to have passed now that people are having and raising kids, an event that does not call for friends to meet up.  I've seen some friends a few times in this past decade, but, to be honest, I haven't stayed in touch with people very well, even with the ever-growing abundance of social media that connects everyone.  Maybe I was curious to see how 20 years had changed my classmates and Davidson, but mainly I thought that it would be a fun weekend and that I shouldn't miss it. 

So, I made plans back in April - buying a ticket and getting a hotel room - and forgot about planning until about a week before leaving, when I rented a car.  Taking the red-eye, I packed on Thursday afternoon, we spent Thursday afternoon/evening hanging around Venice Beach before I caught my plane from LAX.

The Venice Canals are always fun and worthy of a quick picture!

As for the reunion, I'm not sure what I expected.  As I said, I was curious about seeing people and places.  I did reconnect with old friends which was awesome, and it's funny because there people that I remember thinking "I know I didn't like you in college, but it doesn't matter anymore.".  That was the most significant thought I had regarding people.  That and the regret that I feel about not staying in better touch.  The other thought was that we looked pretty good but we were no longer young and hip! I saw the younger reunion groups and they were definitely that - younger!  My final thought from the night - what a lot of lawyers!  That was definitely one of the most popular career tracks that people seemed to follow post-college. 

I definitely did not feel overly nostalgic for life in college.  I did pass by dorms I once called home and walked through the main classroom building, Chambers, but much of my wanderings around campus made me wonder about how much had changed (so many new buildings! A coffee shop on campus!) and how much had stayed the same (traditional red brick buildings, nice green expanses of lawns).  Coming from CA, the biggest shock was how green everything was!  I mean literally GREEN, not eco or environmental, but lush, verdant plants and trees.  That was my first thought when the plane flew into Charlotte.  

Other than seeing friends, the highlight of the weekend was a nice run from the college campus to what is known as the "Lake Campus", a trek that would have been unthinkable on foot when I was in college but made for a perfect Saturday morning long run.  I was a bit skeptical about the road situation (would a car hit me?  would a dog attack me?), but people were quite courteous, and I really enjoyed the run.  There was an organized bike ride happening, which would have also been totally unthinkable when I was in college in that area, so it was fun to look at the bikes and wish that I'd brought shoes and pedals and rented a bike for the morning! 

Saturday night was the final shin-dig, for me at least, and we even took a class picture.  I think about 25% of our class was there - definitely a small group, but it's a small school! I'm on the front row talking to someone - nice shot of me with my head completely turned around.  The most interesting thing about the evening was "experiencing" the reunion speaker - our former dean of students who ended up insulting pretty much everyone there thanks to his sexist, classist and racist remarks.  It was impressive to see someone just crash and burn that spectacularly in person.  (It's not funny at all, but wow! It gave us something to talk about!)

This trip was so brief that I was back in LA by noon on Sunday, and it almost seemed surreal that I had woken up in North Carolina hours ago.  Upon my return, someone asked if I'd had any major revelations on this trip, and I bluntly said that I did not.  Which is true, but I certainly did feel the passage of time and the paradox that people and places change but also stay the same.  I also think that this is a better school than when I attended, and not just academically but in terms of the programs the school offers and the students that it attracts.  In a way, I wish that I could return to college, only because I think that I could "do it" better - meaning, hindsight is 20/20.  I would take different classes, be more active in other aspects of college life, perhaps I would drink and study a bit less (both of which I did quite a bit).

Then again, I'm pretty happy with where I am, so maybe I wouldn't change a thing?  I do know this - I'm happy that I went to college but I'm even happier that I'm not IN college anymore!

Cause for celebration

I'm not much of a valentine's day fan, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise since we've even started to not celebrate birthdays around here - at least not with gifts.  But this week did bring me/us several reasons to celebrate, so we obliged rather happily!

First of all, I had a knee appointment on Thursday morning - a very romantic way to start the day, I know.  The good and pretty damn good-looking doctor prodded, poked and groped my knee, commenting that it felt "great!"(I love that a knee can become a point of admiration).  I exhaled a sigh of relief that I have yet to ruin his handicraft!  My last cortisone shot was back in June, so making it 8 months between shots is pretty significant, and the shots seem to continue to work - fingers crossed!  Not that I'm dealing with great pain, but it starts to build up and do more than just "nag".  If the doctor approves the shots as a course of action, who am I to protest, especially if it keeps me on my feet and moving.

While we swore off any 'romantic' celebrations on Thursday, we actually did have dinner plans for Friday due to a Groupon that was about to expire.  As it turned out, we ended up with more than just a three-day weekend and a belated fake holiday to toast.  After work yesterday, we drove to the Valley (amazing when I go to a part of LA and I ask myself or whoever I'm with "Where the hell are we?"; that was definitely my experience yesterday afternoon - not that I haven't been to the Valley, but not to that part of it) and signed what seemed to be our life away in the form of loans and deeds and titles and so much other paperwork.  We also got a date to close on the house that we almost own - a real date and a real house: March 7.  HOLY CRAP!  We are now officially entering adulthood in the form of "Home Ownership"!  Like all major ventures, this is both exciting and terrifying, and we can't quite believe that it's happening.

I've kept mum about the house search - even in real life, as much as possible - because it seemed like such a fragile possibility and because it has been a somewhat emotional process.  After years of vacillating between our dream of moving to another city or state and the idea of buying a house in the LA area, we  finally decided back in October to get serious with the house business.  Redfin.com became not a fun little escape but an important source of information that we scoured weekly and even daily at times.  In October and November, house hunting took over our weekends as we spent hours on Saturday and Sundays at open houses, often feeling deflated because we didn't like the places or equally deflated because we did like them but knew that we would probably be outbid (which did happen - someone put down an all-cash offer on one of the houses we bid on, so how could we compete with that?).  In this process, we learned quite a bit about ourselves and what we wanted/needed in a house and some of our expectations were different from what we thought they would be.  First of all, because of our two larger dogs, we really couldn't be in a tiny place (under 1,000 square foot - believe me, we saw plenty of those!).  Also, a yard was key.  Ditto for a two-car garage.  And decent closet space.  And a logical floor plan.  And a decent neighborhood where I could go for a run.  And not too much work to make it liveable.  And we didn't want to be house poor.  This all seems fairly basic, but we couldn't believe some of the places that we saw (too small, weird neighbors, a nice big pitbull next door, zero closet space, no yard...).  We initially locked into the house back in December, but it did not seem real until the past few weeks when we had the inspection, the appraisal and all sorts of documents come through that indicated that it was ours if we wanted it and if we signed on all the dotted lines!

And now, after all the waiting and looking, we have a closing date and we know when we'll be moving, give or take a day.  Excited and kind of overwhelmed, we definitely celebrated last night at Bashan, indulging in one of the best meals that we've had lately.  We hadn't planned the timing, but it worked out well to eat some amazing food and drink excellent wine after signing away our lives and before the giddy excitement could wear away.  Soon we'll have to face the hard work that comes along with home buying, but for now, I'm content to just enjoy the moment!