Does the fun ever end? I hope not.

When the bouncer looks at us on stage and says, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here,” I want to laugh at the played-out song lyric but instead I pout and look at my friends and say “What can we do now?” Never mind that it’s 2:15 a.m. and bouncers at venues all over town are kicking out others that don’t want their nights to end either. Never mind that we planned to run in the morning and morning is a mere 3 hours away.

Because there are are some places, and some people, and some moments … that are just right.

They say 30 is the new 20 and I look at these 21 and 22-year-olds, fresh from college and anticipating what’s next. I smile because I feel just as young as I did 10 years ago, even sitting with them at trivia and a song comes on and they all relate it to high school – or even middle school – when I first heard it in college. I smile because I see them feeling as if it’s time to grow up and I know it’s nowhere near that time. Not yet. But I’m sad as I think of the moments of my early 20s, the moments that I knew were priceless even then but I just didn’t know how short they would be. I’m sad as I think of my people from back then, the ones who I saw every night (morning?) as the bar lights came home and the bouncer said “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” – except that song wasn’t even played out yet.

If 30 is the new 20 then I am 21 and I will make this moment last as long as I possibly can. Because one day I’ll feel 31. Just not this day.