I am sitting in a restaurant and there are nine loud girls and one guy celebrating one of the girls’ birthday. Rachel is her name. They are impossibly young, loud and full of energy.  They are maybe two years out of college. I am transported back 22 years when a bunch of us lived in NYC post-college and we were  similarly impossibly young, loud and full of energy. Instead of being annoyed, I am comforted by this scene. In my mind’s eye, I see OUR group of friends with mid-80s hairdos (one with especially puffy hair) and outfits (shoulder pads a la the TV Show, Dynasty).

I wouldn’t trade places with them for a second.  The life I imagined for me back then bears no resemblance to the actual course of my life so far and I am happy for the difference.

And their possibilities are limited only by the passage of time and that is a hard and heart-breaking lesson. If I had one thing to tell these girls it would be : freeze your eggs (assuming the technology gets better) or freeze embryos.  Time waits for no one.  That’s years and years away and, yet, it goes so fast.

It seems like yesterday that I was 22 or 23. I still act about 12, which still makes me more mature than my 7 year-old but barely.

Life is beautiful. It just goes so fast.

Have fun, girls, and remember what I said.