I went to the mall today with Jeffrey, Ethan, Evan, and Evan's sister Ashley, one of my childhood comrades I haven't seen since high school. Riding with Evan behind the wheel meant the trip wasn't complete without at least one brush with death, and we certainly did have one. Evan cut into another lane, and just as he did, an 18-wheeler cut into our lane. Luckily, Evan cut into the third lane just in time, and luckily he could do that. That one was close.

Once we arrived at the mall, two things happened. First, Ashley, Jeffrey, and I fell out of the backseat. I was stuck in the middle between the two of them, and they aren't tiny. Second, Ashley wasn't as giggly around me as she was around the guys. At first I thought she had always been giggly and I had managed to tune that out all these years, or maybe that part of her emerged once she left high school, but no, once it was just her and me, she was no longer giggly. Huh. So we talked and looked around for awhile before running into the guys again outside EB Games. After a few rounds of running into them, we stuck together for awhile before I ran off by myself to actually get a thing or two.

After that we went to Taco Bell for lunch, which resulted in another death brush with a van. The meal there was strange. We've all known each other since we were kids, and now all of us are scattered in college, some of us happier than others. (I'm on the happier end of things, it seems.) I remember when Ethan and Danielle and Jeffrey and I would play orphans in the ditch at Grandmother's or when Ashley and I would wander around the baseball fields when Jeffrey and Evan had practice or the birthday sleepovers at Ashley's. Those feel like they happened so long ago.

We grow up far too fast, don't we?