It starts with ice cream

This is the perfect night to go out for ice cream.

And really, there's not much that's needed for that equation. It's warm and it was sunny all day and the world has continued spinning. It's summer in New York, and that's all that matters.

I'm lactose intolerant and ice cream gives me headaches, but I still want to go out for it. Soft serve somewhere out in the country. A chocolate/vanilla twist with chocolate jimmies. You get it, and I'll just come along for the ride.

When I was in high school there was an ice cream place right in the village where I lived. My friends and I would ride our bikes or walk down there often in the summertime. I had 3 friends in town, none of whom lived in my neighborhood. Pam and Amy would ride from their houses to mine. Ellen would have to get a ride. One time -- just one time -- we saw this super cute boy on a skateboard, with another girl and guy. Just the one time. We dubbed him Andrew Phineas, a combination of names we really liked and thought would suit our ideal cute boy. I'd still like to know where he came from and where he went.

I so miss the promise of those times. The promise of a life of love and fulfillment. When even everyone who was so different from each other was the same in this respect: We all had our whole lives ahead of us, marriage and jobs and ways that become set so so so far off, all of us part of this same pool of individuals to meet and choose from. Which I never realized at the time, of course, because you never do. You never realize that one day it will be gone, and you'll be looking around saying, Hey, wait, what happened?? Where did everybody go?

What would you tell your 16-year-old self right now if you could? What would you tell him or her to do differently, to savor now, to always remember? "Spend more time with Grandma"? "When you see Derek coming, run far and screaming in the other direction"? "Wait till you're 20"?

"Don't wait for anything!"?