it was a friday night

It was a Friday night. The sun had set and the sky was in that quick transition of going from grey to black. I was at my friends and we walked to our old elementary school which is right near his house. We were feeling nostalgic, I guess, so we walked around the entire school, and peeked into the windows and remembered walking through those hallways just four years ago. I must have said "I can't believe I'm graduating in less than two years" about eight hundred times. It's funny how you can go from running around the fields and crowd surfing on the stairs and hanging out on the monkey bars one moment, to sitting on the steps with someone who went through all of those memories with you, feeling nostalgic and a little sad for the childhood that you'll never get back the next. I looked around and saw memories everywhere, and as I saw all of these things, tears started to fall. My friend, knowing my sentimental ways, opened his arms for a hug without saying a word.

As we walked back to his house that night, we talked about graduating and prom and how, when we get our licenses, we'll have to take spontaneous road trips to the middle of nowhere just because we want to. And it seemed ironic to be missing the past one moment and getting exciting for the future the next, but that's life -- always looking everywhere but the here and now.

---

And now it's another Friday night. Nearly two months since I wrote those words, and I'm with the same friend, this time doing some baking while dancing around the kitchen to Christmas music. But instead of focusing on the past and the future, I'm focusing on the present and how very good it is, because this day and these moments will be nothing but memories one day, and I want them to be good ones.