oh what a night

Last night I attended a College of Charleston Alumni Association event with BFF Caroline and her husband Willie. I haven't exactly been the most actively involved alumna in the association; in fact I have never been to one of their events, not even this big to-do last night on the year I graduated which is their big attempt to woo you into active participation into the association. Which might explain why I haven't been actively involved.

The big draw for our attendance last night was that Willie's son's band was playing. Normally they play at venues that don't crank up until about 11pm and as I'm long asleep by then, I have never heard them live before. If you don't know The Plainfield Project, you should look them up. They're as great, if not better, live as they are on their CD. (And I heard they may have a new CD coming out later this summer so stay tuned for more good stuff.) The music is easy to listen to and they're very energetic and fun to watch. (There was also great food and a lot of energy from some 2000 people in attendance so it was a good event.)

Despite the great time, I felt really, really old. I would venture a guess that most of the people there last night are either graduating this year (they got a good discount on the tickets) or they graduated sometime in the last five years. Young. Practically babies. Barely old enough to vote.

And they were all in very short dresses. I'm talking short enough where you'd know all of Victoria's Secrets if they bent over just a teensy little bit. I bought myself a new dress for the event at Kohl's (under $13 with tax and using this coupon I got in the mail - what a steal!!!) and was worried that it was too young and short because it stopped about 2 inches above the knee. Clearly I was measuring from the wrong end!

Since our focus was to see Carter's band, we hung around close to the stage, which was really the best place to see not only the band up close, but also the spectacle of young women throwing themselves at the band. These girls would just get on the stage (before Carter asked them to get off which invariably happened), even though there wasn't a whole lot of extra room and never mind that if you're playing a guitar, you might just need a little elbow room. I felt embarrassed for these girls but maybe they didn't remember it this morning.

Which leads me to my next thought.

As I watched all these 22 year-olds having what they think is the time of their lives, I wanted to tell them that you have no idea what life has got in store for you. You think this is the most fun, most exciting, most important, biggest and best time of your life.

Oh, if you only had the perspective of a little time and space.

Fast forward 15 or 20 years, and I hope and pray you'll be able to come back to one of these events and realize that your life is bigger than you could have ever imagined. That those 4 years of college were important, but they weren't nearly as important as you felt they were when you were in the middle of them. That at 22 if you'd dreamed the biggest dreams for yourself and your life, you wouldn't have thought it possible that you'd have covered the ground you've covered by 40. Those are the things I wanted to tell those girls last night who were throwing themselves at a band. But I had to go to the bathroom instead, which is what happens to 39 year-old women who know they better go before they have to drive 45 minutes back home. So Caroline got us into the good bathrooms with no wait because she told the guy guarding the door that she was the band's mom. Clearly there are perks to being old and experienced!