She'll never be nineteen again.

How the ordinary becomes holy once it's gone.

The summer I was nineteen, I worked as a waitress at Applebee’s in Gilroy, California, trying to save as much money as I could before studying abroad in Italy.

At the end of August, my flight would take off from San Francisco, stop over in Zurich, and land in Florence. I could practically taste the gelato. I had two and a half months to save everything I could. So I picked up every shift I could get. I said yes to doubles, yes to closing, yes to covering for anyone who wanted their Saturday night back.

On workdays, I left the house early enough to go through the Starbucks drive-through for an iced caramel macchiato with extra caramel drizzle. I took those first few glorious sips with my hand on the steering wheel, smoking a Marlboro Light, and blasting Learning to Fly by Tom Petty. This was my pre-work anthem. My battle cry. The thing that made working all night bearable, and dare I say, fun.

When my shifts ended, I untied my apron and slid back into the driver's seat of my Jetta, smelling like ranch and fryer grease, counting my tips under the dome light. I loved how it felt to work hard for my money and to know that every table I turned was getting me closer to Italy.

I left in August with a duffel bag nearly the size of my body.

When I landed in Florence on that sunny August afternoon, I caught a cab to my hotel and settled in for the night with two girls who would later become my roommates. We found an apartment in the city center and walked to school together every morning. When class let out at one, we cooked long, elaborate lunches, slept through the afternoons, and went out at night for an aperitivo first, then The Lion's Fountain, the Irish pub where everyone seemed to end up.

We nestled into a beautiful life, and still, we left it constantly. We took a bus that swerved through the cliffs of the Cinque Terre, drank beer at Oktoberfest in Munich, rode a camel through the Sahara Desert, and snowboarded the Swiss Alps. It was the kind of year that contained a whole life's worth of experience. Yet some part of me knew, even while it was happening, that it wouldn't last.

I came home the following July, on the brink of my twenty-first birthday, somewhat dazed and a little bit spellbound. By the men I had fallen for, and the drugs I had tried, and the countries I had crossed, and all the experiences that fed my hungry heart more than any movie or novel ever did. I was determined to go back someday. But at some point after college, I realized it was time to get on with the business of growing up.

There were other adventures. Starting a business. Moving across the country. Falling in love. I fed myself new experiences and kept writing about them. And now, I’ll be thirty-two at the end of July. I live in Massachusetts with my husband and we’re expecting a baby boy this August, twelve years after I boarded that flight to Florence.

Yesterday, as I drove to my OB appointment, Learning to Fly came on the radio.

It took me back to being nineteen again, drinking iced coffee in my all-black uniform and non-slip shoes, mentally preparing myself for the eight-hour shift that lay ahead of me. For whatever reason, I remember my summer at Applebee’s almost as fondly and as vividly as the year I spent abroad. The two experiences couldn’t have been more different. One was eight-hour shifts spent waiting tables in the summer heat. The other was whole afternoons with nothing to do but drink and eat and explore. Yet they hold equal importance in my mind.

There’s a part of me that wants to slip back into that time, even for just a moment. With all of my hopes and dreams and perceptions of the world tucked neatly away in the treasure trove of my young and unbroken heart.

Maybe it's because anticipation is just as powerful an emotion as fulfillment is. That the very best part of something is also how good it feels to work toward it. To know you're standing on the edge of this big, wild, extraordinary part of your life. Even on the hard days, the sore feet and closing shifts, there is the certainty that something beautiful is on its way.

Last night, I woke up around three thirty in the morning and couldn’t fall back asleep.

Usually when this happens, I start to feel anxious, because I know it means tomorrow will be harder. But this time, something in me surrendered. Instead of tossing and turning, I grabbed my water bottle from the nightstand and went downstairs to sit on the couch for a while. My dog, Laurence, followed closely behind me. I pet him in the dark and scrolled my phone and let the hour pass, and around four thirty, I crawled back into bed.

I’ve gotten used to the waking and the waiting. And it’s hard to imagine not being pregnant anymore. It has become my new normal: the swollen fingers, the trips to the bathroom, the hours I spend on the couch cuddling with my dogs.

Just like the summer before Florence, I had filed this time away as a waiting period. A transition. The interim between my old life and my new one. But maybe we can't be so certain about which parts of our lives will become precious to us. Maybe there is no waiting. There's only living. And this time, as hard as it is, is part of the beauty I will remember one day, too.

Until next time,
Anna