Defining moment

Day 3 of Reverb says:
December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

New York in the fall is fabulous. It's not warm and there's the faintest chill, enough to finally wear my brown, healed boots. I had my baby blue Adidas duffle bag slung over one shoulder and my purse on the other as I thankfully hopped out of a taxi that had charged much more than deserved. I arrived to Megan's brownstone, grateful to see a familiar face. After hugs and dropping off my bags, we headed out to lunch down the street to some sports bar. "I just told my brother that I'm hoping she's ok with starting the afternoon off with drinks." Haha, drinks were more than ok to celebrate our reunion.

As we ordered a pitcher of beer and salads, my moment hit me. It was a sudden realization of all my life adventures so far coming together at one single moment. Here I was: still fresh off the plane from Charlotte, where I had come from Rock Hill and spent the last few months starting a southern life, sitting at a table a on sidewalk in New York City, where years earlier I had come nearly every weekend with my nanny friends when I spent a year in New Jersey, sharing drinks with my old roommate from the University of Minnesota. Woah.

I have explored new areas of the nation and I don't just mean on random road trips. I have had drivers lisences from different states and been an actual resident of small towns. I have taken the road less traveled more than once in such a short time span and I couldn't have been more proud of myself than in that moment. Some people spend their whole lives in the same town, with the same people and never branch out. I have ventured off on my own more than once, to foreign places where I didn't have a single friend. Not only have I survived, I have really lived.