Driving Down Memory Lane

Driving today in my old stomping grounds brought back so many memories…Amazing what a trip down a few roads and highways triggers in your brain. A trip down memory lane…

Memories of old friends, and times spent together. Memories of drives taken, and lovers come and gone. Memories of first jobs, and old flames. And some of the roads felt, oh, so familiar. Even after so many years, I could drive them almost with my eyes closed.

A trip home to visit my mother as part of my daughter’s college visits and interviews spurred many a thought to times spent at the base of the Catskill Mountains. Parties in the woods, when we weren’t supposed to be partying in the woods. Nights hanging with friends in bars (before I was even “of age”) or at “the corner.” Crushes on boys that became friend’s husband. Boyfriends who fought for and over me, proms in blue dresses and tuxes, girl friends with whom to spend the night…friends…lots of friends…football games…rides on buses as the statistician for the varsity soccer team…old teachers I loved…homes of people long gone…

Passing a telephone pole that an ex-boyfriend crashed his new sports car into…and a hospital where another ex-boyfriend lay after his car accident. They weren’t good drivers, I guess…or drove drunk? (The latter, I think.) Probably the latter. Driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge, I thought of a friend who thought life wasn’t worth living and jumped off…we never knew why. (My daughter cringed; her best friend hung himself just two and a half years ago.)

A stop in Westchester County, so near to my first apartment…my first job out of college. Thoughts of old college boyfriends surface, time at Rye Beach, playing volleyball, working on regional magazines nearby, the places I lived before moving out of state, commuting into the city, living on my own…

Then back…Getting off at the exit I remember so well, driving the roads I recall…feeling as if I drove them just yesterday.

Many high school friends have contacted me on Facebook…faces and names I remembered as I drove around today. I thought about the possibility of attending a high school reunion this summer. To see these people again…go back in time…another trip down memory lane. Maybe I’ll do it in person…maybe.

There’s a context you have with people who “knew you when” that you never have with people you meet later in life. They understand who you were and who you are now…what you’ve become. It’s unique. Special…worth cultivating…Maybe that’s why we say: Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. They say you can “never go home again.” Maybe not as the same person you were before. But you can go home again.