to the nights that never ended,

to the nights that never ended,

There was a time when midnight felt early. When a random Tuesday could turn into a story we’d tell for years. When we measured time in semesters instead of calendars.

The apartment you’ll only live in for one year. The friends you’re convinced you’ll see every weekend forever. The streets, classes, living rooms and bars that you memorize like the back of your hand.

Then one day you wake up and realize you’ve spent more years away from that chapter of life than you ever spent in it, but somehow those years still feel close enough to touch.

Back then, we were all just figuring things out. Making questionable decisions and staying out too late. Spending money we didn’t have and trusting people we probably shouldn’t have. Making mistakes that at the time felt catastrophic at the time, but now make for some of our favorite stories.

It’s funny how every stupid choice eventually becomes a lesson, and every late night that you lived a hundred times over, eventually comes to an end even when you swore it never would.

There are people from those years you no longer talk to, even though at one point you called them one of your best friends. Then there are others you only see every now and then, but within five minutes you’re laughing about stories no one else could possibly understand. And then there are the few that made it out of those years with you, and still stand by your side today to reminiscing about who you were while also loving the person you’ve become.

You spend those years trying so hard to become an adult, only to look back and realize those were the first adults you ever were.

Is it weird to sometimes miss that version of yourself? Not because your life isn’t good now. Not because you would trade where you are today for where you were then. But just because there was something blissful about having less to carry.

Back when your biggest worry was digging through you and your friends’ closets trying to figure out what to wear out on a Friday night. When seeing your friends meant walking down the street or knocking on their bedroom door, instead of driving an hour to meet for dinner or scheduling a FaceTime call because they now live four states away. When you already knew where you’d end up every night until 2 AM, and somehow there was always room for one more before calling it a night.

Maybe that’s why I find myself thinking about those years so often, and with such fondness. Not because I want to be in them again, but because there was something special about living through a moment, a day, a night that you were so sure would never end.

Looking back, I think that’s what made those nights feel endless in the first place. It wasn’t the parties or the bars or the fact that midnight felt early. It was the people. The certainty that we’d all be there tomorrow.

The friendships changed. New people moved into the apartments. The bars found a new crowd, and the routines we could recite by heart slowly disappeared.

Somehow though, the golden stories remain.

And maybe that’s the funny thing about the nights that never ended.

They did.

But when you find yourself sitting across from someone who lived those years with you, laughing about the stupid things you did and the stories many don’t know, for a moment it feels like they never did.

I think that’s why those years feel so golden when I look back on them now. They weren’t perfect and I didn’t know how special they were while I was living them. Like a golden hour sunset, they were always destined to be temporary. Beautiful because they wouldn’t last forever. Easy to overlook while they were right in front of me. Impossible not to appreciate once they were gone.