Mourning Our Youth

Last night I went out to dinner with four of my friends and it was a monumental evening for our friendship. Let me explain.

It began when we all showed up for the evening wearing black. When we arrived at Benihanas (a Japanese Hibachi place), we immediately noticed a group of 4 young(er), crazy(er), girls waiting at the bar for their table. One of my friends (knowing that Benihana pairs you up with another group to sit around the Hibachi table) made the comment, "Oh God, please don't let us be paired up with them for dinner." I think we were cursed, because of course, when our beeper went off, so did theirs.

When we sat down, the first thing the crazy(er), young(er) girls asked us was if we had planned to dress the same. We were a little embarassed, and one of my friends said, "no, we're just all in mourning". And, I said, "Mourning our Youth, that is"

Mourning our Youth quickly became the theme of the night.

The first thirty minutes of the dinner were slightly foreboding. The girls we were with were 21 and out to HAVE A GOOD TIME. They chided us for ordering wine to drink (instead of liquor like them), and they basically annoyed us with their loud yelling and crazy "wooing". But, like I said, that only lasted for the first thirty minutes.

Because, after those 30 minutes went by, those young(er), crazy(er) girls mysteriously disappeared to the bathroom. One among their ranks was having trouble holding her "liquor", so we spent the rest of our dinner alone at our table to enjoy our food, our wine, and our good company.

At some point, someone brought up the idea of starting a book club. And, someone else mentioned that book clubs made her feel "old", at which point our mantra for the night "mourning our youth" came up once again.

It was quickly decided that not only would we start a book club, but we would title ourselves none other than Mourning our Youth (MOY for short), and it would be required that we wear black to every meeting.

By the time we were ready to get up and leave the restaurant we realized that we had outlasted those YOUNG(ER) girls, and spent the majority of our evening laughing harder than any of us could remember laughing in quite some time.

It was a monumental evening, because I think we realized that even though we might be getting a little older than we feel comfortable with, Mourning Our Youth is just an ironic title, because really, our best years have just begun.