Glimpses of My Old Life

Last night our little family trekked to a local restaurant for wings because 3/4 of us LOVE wings. Red is the only resister - she can't stand chicken at all, but that's another post for another day.

The wing place near us is good and in the heart of a college town. This does not deter us at all from going down there on a Friday night because we're usually gone by 8 before any partiers really get boozing.

So last night I'm looking around the place as we ate our scrumptiously fried and dipped wings. A couple was cozy in a back corner, sipping their beers and whispering. Another table had a group of friends laughing as they ordered pitchers and wings.
That could have been us not too long ago. In fact, that was us not too long ago. In the same exact town, on the same exact street we perused as college kids.

Marshall and I in college

And I looked at my little table. A 30-something couple - two kids and one on the way. Not exactly the same situation as those kids barely out of diapers drinking. We were in college 10-14 years ago. We've since gotten married, bought homes, had children. But we're in the same place (geographically), the same college town we fell in love with 14 years ago.

Except now the college kids are younger and younger (we're not getting older - of course not!). I watched a guy I thought should still be sharpening his PSAT pencil pull out his ID and order a Bud.

Don't get me wrong, I love where we live. I mean love it. I would be happy living in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains the rest of my life, and the closer to our college alma mater the better (travel time from home to said wing bar: less than 5 minutes. It's awesome.).

But I realize we are not the kids we were when we arrived. Gone are the fresh faces - Marshall's that couldn't grow a full beard and mine with no worry lines. Gone are the days of sitting around a table with our friends, sharing a pile of onion rings, pitchers of cold drinks, and abundant laughter.

Then I looked at my table. Me, my husband, my kids. Sitting around a table sharing a pile of tater tots, laughing and playing a rousing game of Eye Spy.

The fam

And I realized in that moment I wouldn't trade this life for anything - even my old one. Same town, same place, same me. Same, but different at the same time. It's pretty deep.