When I was fifteen, Michelle Lawruck and I would skip first period religion class to eat breakfast in the park down the street from our school.

It's a perk of having my parents die when I was in high school. I never got in trouble for anything. I mean, c'mon, would you give an orphan detention? :)

In the spring, it was stunning there. All the trees were green and the gardens in full bloom. It was our little piece of paradise in the storms of our adolescence.

We would take off our shoes and wade out to this big, flat rock in the middle of the river - our catholic school skirts rolled high above the knee so we wouldn't get them wet.

We'd lie on our backs and dangle our feet in the water, eating our McDonald's hashbrowns and low-fat chocolate milk.

And we'd talk. About everything.

I think that's the coolest part of being fifteen. Life is still undiscovered. Fresh. You don't know what to expect ... so you spend alot of your time dreaming.

Michelle and I would talk about where we wanted to live, who we were gonna love, how many kids we would have, what kind of job we'd do ... and how we could make it through another day.

Our conversations were without pretense. They were before we knew about salaries or politics or kitchen appliances. We just talked because it made us feel better. It brought us comfort. It gave breath to our dreams.

We would bring our poetry books with us. At the time, I was really into 18th and 19th century poetry - Keats, Shelly, Blake etc. I blame this on the Dead Poet's Society. A movie I had memorized frame by frame.

Michelle was just as much a poetry freak as I was. We would memorize poems and then each recite a verse ... like some kind of code.

Yeah, I was nerd. So what of it?? What?? You want a piece of me?? C'mon. I could take you.

That's how we spent our mornings. Reading poetry, waxing philosophical and eating McDonald's hashbrowns on a rock.

Can't get much better than that.

I could do the same thing now ... but it would be different somehow. Maybe because I know more so I can't dream as colorfully. Or maybe because, as a grownup, I can't find anyone who'd be willing.

Whatever the case, things have changed.

The rock is still there. However, Michelle isn't. She joined the army right after high school. She's now married and lives in England with her husband.

We send occasional emails but more out of politeness than friendship. Life and age made us grow apart. We will never again have the same kind of talks we had when we were fifteen. We will never again sit on that rock together.

Sometimes, I wish to be fifteen again. To get lost and consumed by my dreams. To have so many unknowns that the world becomes a magical place - more mystery than reality.

However, age has its advantages. For what you lose in mystery, you gain in appreciation. I understand so much more of myself now. I feel infinitely more confident in my skin.

I am woman now ... not a girl. And there is a whole lot of beauty in that. It's more than curves, breasts and periods .. being a woman means feeling empowered.

I can't explain it. But if you're fifteen now ... just wait. You'll see what I'm talking about in another ten years.

Woman are powerful, powerful creatures. It's ashame that, sometimes, it takes us a lifetime to figure it out.

So as I rapidly approach thirty, I may not skip first period to read poetry on rocks with my feet in the water .. but I do leave work early to drink wine and dance salsa (badly)in my kitchen.

Kinda the same thing. Only more sanitary.

People always told me that high school would be the best years of my life.

I wouldn't say that.

They were tinged with magic. Delightful and astounding in their own right.

But it was only the beginning.

There is still so much more of the story to write.

So. Much. More.

It never gets really good until the second act.

And I don't think it will be the last I'll see of magic.

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