hold on to 16 as long as you can...

my best friend's name was lisa. we were in school together and were inseparable. we fought a lot and were very good at getting into trouble.

lisa was tall, blue-eyed and blonde. i was flirty, curvy and willing to go along. we were hell on... "not old enough to drive" wheels. that meant we snuck out, borrowed cars, and went head long into trouble without a helmet.

lisa's mom was in a committed relationship with a married man. not exactly the best role model on any account, but she did her best. i liked her, but she really left us alone too much. we often had weekends to ourselves at her house at the ripe old age of 14-17. from a parental perspective, that is not the age to leave your daughter the house and a car in the driveway. from a teenager's eyes, oh, that rocked.

to live a cliche those were the years i discovered drugs, sex and rock and roll. it's amazing i survived. though i had a blast, i do have a few scares and one horrible story that i rarely share.

but, we were young and the world was full of possibilities. i was invincible and i had big plans to get out of this town. i was going to move to la. i was going into radio and eventually buy a station in la.

i had huge crushes, but no plans. i was learning by swimming with sharks, but my resiliency was as unbelievable as my luck.

one day, lisa's mom was having one of her famous backyard bbqs. lisa and i were plotting a way to get out. i was standing at the bottom of the yard looking out to the alley thinking that maybe we could walk to the store. jack and diane came on the radio.

i loved john cougar mellencamp and we sang this song all the time. i remember at that moment hearing him sing "hold on to 16 as long as you can. changes come around real soon make us women and men."

i looked out to the alley and the hills beyond. i thought, you're sixteen and you can do anything in the world that you want. go out and see where life takes you and when you're thirty, if you hear this song again, remember this day and what it was like to be sixteen.

thirty came, i remembered my promise to myself. i didn't like where life had taken me. when i heard this song; it hurt.

tonight, on the way home from belly dancing, i heard it again and remembered the day of the bbq. i'm not out of this town... yet. i don't have the radio station or any of the things i wanted at the age of 16, but i want different things and i'm finally on track to get what i want at 42.

i see myself looking out that backyard to the hills, to the possibilities, and they are still there waiting for me. i remember what it was like to be sixteen and that's what the promise was about, not just what i've done with my life.

"life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone... they walk on..."

ps: this counts for november three. get over it.