Spring

It was one of those Southern Spring nights where it is almost rude to stay inside. The kind of weather where the breeze is so warm that it feels like you're being wrapped up in the most perfect kind of blanket. 

I don't think I'll ever get tired of walking around our neighborhood; with every house I pass, a new potential of history lingers in my mind blooming stories upon stories upon stories of the families that live (or have lived) in them. I love these streets so much that it already makes me sad to think about a time when I won't be surrounded by such stately brick and wise tree branches.

Have you ever really looked at an old house? I'm talking about studying it for so long that you feel almost like you're untying its walls and challenging its roots in a staring competition of its merit. At first, the house will stare back and stand up tall wondering why you are daring to intrude on it's privacy. Don't be intimidated. Old houses like these just aren't used to this type of flirtatious attention.  After a few minutes though, it will begin to trust your subtle pressure and it will lean into you out of its own pure curiosity. You will show it your face and an earnest furrowed brow so it will show you it's toothiness and it's knobbed knees. The cracked paint and the muscular columns. It will share all its secrets with you as long as you share one too. It will smile. Or it won't. It may growl. Or scream. But you and that house will know each other forever. 

Experience

"Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My god, do you learn."

C. S. Lewis 

About 84% of this applies:

A Letter To My College-Age Self

JUL. 3, 2012

By ALEXANDRA GEHRINGER 

Live. Wildly, recklessly, and with as much passion as you can muster. Make out with your RA during Freshman Orientation. Accept one last drink from the cute guy behind the keg at the frat house basement. Stay out after the bars close. Make friends with the cab drivers. Lay in the middle of the street laughing with your best girls. Watch the Notebook at 3 a.m. when you're all drunk and have a good cry over failed relationship attempts. Get up on the damn stage and sing some freakin' karaoke already. 

Recognize the true moments. Wake up in the middle of the night for the first snow of the season and watch the city turn white with your roommates. (You might even want to put on John Mayer’s underrated, though classic, “St. Patrick’s Day” and sway arm in arm while singing along.) Find “your” desk in the library. Watch Grey’s Anatomy every week because you never know when a good thing can turn bad (hint: third season). Sit on top of the washing machines and have life chats with that random girl from upstairs. She’ll end up being one of your best friends.

Be careful. Don’t use that fake ID you found on the sidewalk. You don’t look 28 and you’re certainly not a Pacific Islander. Observe Cinco de Mayo, but be cautious of the tequila… that one doesn’t end well for you. No private planes, no matter what. Study. All the men you’ll ever date will have the same name — run now from the first one in a curious line of many. Get mad, but don’t stay mad. Shopping isn’t always the answer.

Let yourself off the hook. So you sleep through your first exam of college. So you crush on a gay guy for an entire semester. So you have a blowout with your roommates. So you eventually do sing on karaoke night and it’s a train wreck. So you throw up Chipotle and Jose Cuervo on the basket of shoes under your bed. So you spend all your money. So you get a D+ in Italian. So you got on that plane.  So you dated him.

Go to class. Call your mother. You’ll be fine.