Dating After 25....Until We Meet Again

Dating used to be one of those things you looked forward to; getting dressed up, doing your nails, makeup and hair, telling your girlfriends about a new guy you were seeing. Those were the days when Red Lobster used to impress and guys really thought they were spending a lot of money if they took you there. But after age twenty-five where does it all go? The movie nights and the long phone conversations where neither of you wants to hang up first, the excitement of being in love.

Photo by: Kate Haar

Most of us thought that when we fell in love the first time that it would be forever, but about the second, or if you're lucky third time, you know that love doesn't always last forever. Or rather, it becomes something more than just love. This month new college enrollees will go off to campus life for the first time. They'll live on their own for maybe the first time in their life, they'll be more independent than they may have ever been and possibly, they'll fall deeper in love with their high school sweetheart or out of that love and into a more "mature" college love. Nevertheless, there will be changes and transitions. There will be excitement, new scenery, fresh faces and impassioned new people all around.

Meanwhile the rest of us college graduates will be looking for something cozy to get close to this fall other than our Snuggies. Maybe we'll be revisiting some of our Homecomings soon and reliving our own early college years, a time when almost nothing was off limits.

If I could go back to twenty-five I wouldn't change much. I definitely wouldn't caste away all the loves I ever experienced up to that point--my first love, my friends' love, my love for life, love for good food, love for good music (back then, Lauryn Hill, Biggie and Lost Boyz) and love of freedom! Because as I grew, for me, love became more expansive and still, it's expanding.

All the love I thought I could feel back then was just a glimpse of the love I'm experiencing now. For us back then it was a selfish love, a love that just felt good or we thought should feel good, all the time. Now, love has a different drive and rolls at a different speed--desirably less painstakingly, with more purpose, at times with more stipulations, and now, less often but still good!