(Suffice it to say, as soon as we got married Jesse gleefully handed over all the filing and bill paying to yours truly, and this arrangement has worked impeccably well for both of us.)

I also found some receipts from my own college days. You can learn a lot about your former self, and the time period you once inhabited, from receipts. The early 2000s don’t seem that long ago, but here’s a receipt for Hollywood Video–an actual store where I rented movies. And I’m pretty sure I rented them on VHS. On October 3rd, 2001, I rented A Knight’s Tale for $4.02 (it was due back by Monday 10/08/01). Another Wal-Mart receipt listed “developing” as an item, and it took me a moment to remember that I used to pay money to have film developed. Remember that? When you didn’t even know what the pictures looked like? And you couldn’t wait to see them?

I learned to cook in college, but I was working my way up to it and didn’t attempt much from-scratch cooking until my second and third year. Here’s a Publix receipt from June 9, 2002: Toilet paper, turkey hotdogs, hotdog buns, two Boston Market frozen meals, milk, Gatorade citrus cooler (the best flavor ever), a Velveeta mac and cheese with broccoli, and Prego mushroom sauce. I remember that summer. I was working at the Writing Center a lot for the first summer session, and all my friends had left after the spring semester ended. Jesse was back in Merritt Island, working a summer job at Lockheed Martin. We only saw one another a couple times a week. One night, he drove over to Orlando after work and we bought Publix subs for a picnic by Lake Eola. Only it started pouring rain, so we had the picnic on my apartment floor instead.

After the first summer session, I flew out to Oregon and joined my Aunt Nicki and my cousin Katie on my dad’s side for a cross-country trip back to West Virginia. That trip was a month long–a week in Oregon, two weeks across country with stops at Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and other scenic spots along the way, and then another week in West Virginia with family.

On June 14th of that year, I went to Wal-Mart and bought supplies for that trip, including the Dramamine that didn’t work at all when I went whale watching.

The day before that, I filled up my gas tank for $18.31. I paid $1.33 a gallon, and I remember thinking that was expensive.

So, the times have changed. I pay $3.50 a gallon for gas and think that’s expensive. I rent movies from Redbox or Netflix, I shop at Harris Teeter and miss Publix, I have long given up on Dramamine, I no longer buy frozen dinners if I can help it. But some things haven’t changed. I still like citrus cooler Gatorade, though I can’t remember the last time I drank it, or if they even still make that flavor. Jesse and I are still together, though now there are no summers apart (except when I’m traipsing off to California).

I think I might save some receipts this year in a box somewhere, to discover in another decade. I wonder what I will think then of myself now, what judgments I will pass on my food choices, or what I will remember fondly, or what I’ll be paying for gas then (or will we all be driving electric cars by then?). Will I look back on now and think my life much simpler, as I do when I look back at what I had to worry about in college? Will I mentally gloss over the difficulties of today, knowing exactly how things turned out?

Before we left, I casually checked Facebook, just out of habit, and saw the news that a former UCF professor, Jeanne Leiby, had passed away yesterday after a car accident. She was forty-six.

I can’t talk about it. I don’t want to. Jeanne was something else. I remember her always wearing a black top. I remember her refusing to workshop a student’s story because of excessive grammatical errors–and how we loved her for it, how we respected her, and how we understood that she respected us. How she worked hard with another student to try something new–dare I say it, a story that edged on sci fi?–and how we didn’t appreciate it then. She pushed us, and she told us to call her by her first name. She was a force, and I never ever told her that, nor did I hint at how much I listened to her, how I still remember advice she gave on writing and publishing and grad school.

No. I just want to scream, no. It hasn’t happened. It hasn’t happened.

I just see S., dancing and singing, and I am so glad we got it on video, I am so glad we watched her rather than Jacob. I don’t know if this connects in words the way it does in my head, but it’s all I’ve got right now.

Jeanne, you will be sorely missed.

That night, I dreamed that Jesse and I were students again, first years (but married), and we had a great dorm room in a really fancy dorm on a really fancy campus (hey, it was a dream), and after we unpacked our things we left the room and met up with some friends and had no plans other than exploring campus.

Three of my nieces are starting college for the first time this year. On Facebook, they post pictures of their dorm rooms, and their status updates are all about early morning classes and meeting new friends and going home for the weekend.

Sometimes I ache for that. And I’ve been wondering, why?

The question has been bouncing around my brain for a week or so, and I think I’ve stumbled upon an answer. It goes something like this: The day I moved out of my parents’ house and into my first apartment, a wave of homesickness I wasn’t prepared for hit me as I sat alone in my new room. And then Scott and Jesse and I went out to dinner at some Tex-Mex place, and I felt better, was reminded of the excitement, was reminded I wasn’t alone. In the weeks afterward we’d meet up for lunch on campus or we’d go to Taco Bell at 2:00 in the morning, just because we could.

For the last two years of school, Jesse and I lived in apartments across the street from one another. After class, I’d grab a book and head over to their place and just hang out. Maybe the boys would play a video game, or maybe we’d talk about politics or philosophy or homework, or maybe we’d all just sit and study together. My roommate Marianne and I would sit in our living room and study for finals together. And even though we didn’t study the same thing, it was enough to be in the same room, eating bowls of cherries. And when it wasn’t finals week, we’d cook dinner together, we’d look at recipes, we’d watch Food Network back when Rachael Ray still just had one show, and we’d work puzzles with Samie, and we’d carve pumpkins and make gingerbread houses.

Our lives were lived in concert, and we had a rhythm, the semester-long ups and downs, the midterms and finals. We shared a campus; we went to the same movies, the same football games, the same restaurants.

Even though I think the community we have now is considerably closer than many others get to enjoy once past the college experience, it’s still a post-grad community of married people who own their own houses. We don’t hang out anymore. Getting together with friends involves cooking dinner or going out to dinner, going to a movie (a half-hour drive away), going to the beach, etc. It’s a production. It’s scheduled, often a week or more in advance. Outside of small group, we rarely see the same people on even a weekly basis, and some of our friends we might see once a month.

I never needed an invitation to Jesse and Scott’s apartment. I just needed to know if they were back from class yet or not. And vice versa. It was expected, it was natural.

So, while I very much enjoy being back on a college campus—the impromptu music and the library and all the opportunities that come along with academia—I do still miss being an undergrad, miss the evenings when Jesse, Scott, and I sat around trying to figure out what to eat and decided to walk to Big Daddy’s for pizza, feeling like the world was ours, knowing that it was.

That bit about the flashcards—I remembered that this morning as I sat on my couch, listening to Beta Radio, drinking green tea with honey I bought at the farmer’s market last week. I had been reading a book but had set it down, and I was just sitting there, with my tea and music, feeling happy and present.

Because that, I think, was what I really learned from the flashcards: to not be present. If an activity isn’t naturally productive, make it productive.

Last night, we had Warren over for dinner. Sharon and Story are visiting family out of state (no, I haven’t killed the garden yet, though one of the cucumbers and some of the broccoli plants aren’t looking so great…sorry, Sharon). Earlier this week, I’d read through half the new issue of Bon Appétit and had come across several recipes I wanted to try.

See, another thing I’ve realized is that while I cook all the time, I have stopped challenging myself in the kitchen, and it’s that challenge that I really enjoy, it’s pulling off a difficult meal, the sense of accomplishment. I mean, I enjoy cooking the standards, too, the meals I know will turn out, but sometimes it’s fun to live a little dangerously.

Well, last night I made a chicken dish with a sauce made with roasted garlic, white wine, butter, cream, and tarragon. On the side, a salad of rice, corn, avocadoes, poblano chile, yellow bell pepper, zucchini, cilantro, and a lemon juice dressing. And buttermilk biscuits.

Everything turned out perfectly. I’m not just saying that. It was perfect. The chicken was tender, the sauce tangy and creamy, the salad delightful, the biscuits like fluffy little pillows.

Sharon called as we started eating, and Warren stepped away from the table to take the call. While he was gone, I took my first bite of the chicken and then whispered to Jesse, “I don’t want to brag or anything, but this is stinking good.” And he said, “Yeah, I hope this is going on the list of ‘Things to Cook All the Time.’”

The recipes weren’t complicated. In fact, they were downright easy. They weren’t challenging in that way, but cooking that meal took my full attention—getting the three things to come out on time, cooking all three simultaneously, the biscuits being a last-minute whim, making sure everything was chopped and ready, the stirring and the tasting and the adjusting. I was fully present in the kitchen, and then I was fully present while eating what I’d made. Enjoying it. I left all the dishes for this morning.

No flashcards necessary.

And this morning, a quiet sleepy Saturday with eggs and leftover biscuits for breakfast, Jesse heading out to golf with guys from the small group, and me, sitting on the couch, listening to music and drinking tea, remembering me at fifteen, remembering last night’s meal, the garden having been watered this morning and book work to do later on. But that moment was just what it needed to be, nothing more, and it was lovely.

We had plans to spend Thanksgiving in Florida and Christmas in North Carolina but at the last minute things got switched up and so we find ourselves in North Carolina, all by our lonesomes. Everyone’s going out of town, it seems. Or having family come in town. The city feels empty, regardless.

I think up until today, I’ve been in a bit of denial that we’ll be alone for Thanksgiving. I even bought a turkey and the stuff to make a green bean casserole (it was on sale). For the Thanksgiving dinner I won’t be making this year. (And how am I going to con our friends—who will likely be spending the weekend eating so much they won’t want to even see another turkey until next November—into coming over to help us eat our eighteen-pound bird?)

I remember Thanksgiving in college, when Marianne would pass up invitations to join us in Titusville for Thanksgiving dinner, her parents being all the way in Japan. I couldn’t understand it then—Thanksgiving with non-family was better than no Thanksgiving at all, wasn’t it? But now I totally get it. I’d rather just cancel the holiday altogether and skip right onto Christmas.

Tomorrow we’re going to John and Michelle’s “Thanksgiving for the people who don’t get to be with family” party, and I’m sure we’ll have a nice time. And people have been really sweet to us, inviting us over and everything. I’m just ready for the whole thing to be over. I don’t want any more reminders. Ungrateful much? Yeah. And during the holiday where the whole point is gratitude. Don’t think I don’t get the irony. Ha. Well, I promise the wallowing will be over by the time everyone gets back in town.

So, anyway. Here’s looking forward to Friday.

I was the overachiever, the over-involved, I was young and had no need for full nights of sleep. I had just come out of community college, where I’d spent most of high school taking dual-enrollment classes. There was little to nothing that ever seemed to happen at the tiny Titusville campus of Brevard Community College (the honors English class I hoped to take was eventually cancelled after I was the only one to sign up for it). So, when I got to UCF, I decided to do it all. I went to work, padding my resume as much as I could.

Sigma Tau was part of my push to be involved in everything, but the little club was at that time a lot like the Titusville BCC. Nothing was really happening. I was active in other clubs and had just interviewed for a fairly important spot on an executive board of an established leadership organization. I thought my involvement in Sigma Tau would stop at attending meetings, maybe participating in a fundraiser here or there, and so on.

So, I showed up for the meeting. As I remember, it was me, Sabrina, and the outgoing president. Maybe our faculty advisor was there. Maybe not. I’m fuzzy on the details, but clear on one thing: Sabrina and I walked out of the meeting de-facto president and vice-president of the club. Sabrina was a clear choice—she was the only one who was actually doing anything in the club, probably more active for the chapter than the president had been. But I hadn’t intended to be part of the Sigma Tau leadership; I had just showed up.

As we left the meeting room, the outgoing president said to us: “Don’t bother trying to do anything with Sigma Tau. No one shows up, no one’s interested, no one cares. My best advice is to put your energies into other endeavors.”

Well.

He meant to be helpful. And he was more helpful than he could have realized. What he did was pose a challenge. A dying, derelict club with no influence, no prominence, and no member activity. And the guy in charge, telling us not to waste our time.

What you should know about Sabrina—and I hope she doesn’t mind my talking for her; I’m sure she will correct me if I’m wrong—is that she was more of an overachiever than I was. Not in the negative sense. She was, and is, the most intensely productive person I’ve ever met, and it seems to be part of her nature to accomplish more than the average human being is even capable of. Maintaining a high GPA while balancing work, campus involvement, and a thriving social life seemed like nothing to her. She’s the consummate multi-tasker, is absolutely brilliant, is a risk-taker. I swear she runs on batteries that never seem to need much recharging. What she wants, she makes happen. And she does it all while looking better than the rest of us, too.

We started talking about what was, and what could be. I ended up getting the position I’d interviewed for. I turned it down. I wanted to devote all my energies to Sigma Tau. Around this time, Sabrina and I were in a grammar class with Zea, and she hopped on board with the whole Sigma Tau experiment. We were going to make it great. I knew we could prove everyone wrong, that we could accomplish what seemed impossible.

And we did.

Those were some of my favorite college experiences. The club went from nonexistent to thriving. We were landing in the school newspaper, we were organizing lectures with standing room only, we were having a blast.

I miss that. Here is something I’m going to put on my desk, or on my wall, or somewhere I’ll look at it regularly: “What do I believe is impossible to do in my field…but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?” I don’t know where it originated from, but Andy Stanley quoted it in his book, Next Generation Leader. (This from the same author as Visioneering.)

It made me think about Sigma Tau. That’s what we had to do. We had no other option. Continuing with the status quo meant death for the club, and we weren’t interested in presiding over a dead club.

For a while now, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a rut. There is a whole lot of status quo and not a lot of thinking about how to accomplish the impossible. And now I’ve got this group of leaders I’m responsible for, my Pod People, and we had kind of been going along at a decent pace, but it was just exactly what was expected. And nothing that was unexpected. So, I’ve been thinking for the past few months—what if? What is, and what could be?

What I told them at the dinner party this week is that the worst danger facing their groups is mediocrity. So, time to start practicing what I preach. (Now, if I could just figure out how Sabrina gets so much done…)