These words just kind of jumped off my tongue.

There was nothing to do it really. Our table was ready but the noise level at the establishment, like many Korean BBQ restaurants, was a bit too loud for the rest of the party to hear. I said it like any responsible teacher of young students would say it with a tinge of sarcasm, which is a second language I took a bit too much pride in for a middle-aged man.

It was a celebration with an absurdly large party of twenty folks, I barely knew two people. It was a strange mix of demographics, but made perfect sense if you knew who was organizing the event. Instead of a single organizer, it was an entire family. A couple in the 50’s with both children barely old enough to buy booze legally; they had invited their own groups of friends to enjoy a night in the Big Apple prior to the main event.

The Main Event will not be named due to the permanent PTSD it has left on all participants but the night before, was the type of night that we would be look back on nostalgically and wax poetic in the years to come. One of the younger gentleman had just broken up with his girlfriend prior to the trip, he ended up waking up next to an innocent participant of a Bachelorette Party he unknowingly crashed. Another handful of folks made regular trips to the porcelain throne that evening because they imbibed a bit too generously due to the general good vibes from the evening’s festivities. And I came away with one new Instagram Follower who just said,

“You’re the guy that screamed ‘It’s Happening!’ aren’t you?”

“It was a reference to The Office meme…”

She shook her head with unknowing eyes.

“Kids these days…” I said, “Why are you here anyway, are you a fellow alum?”

“No.”

“Duke grad?”

“No.”

“Harvard.” With a sheepish smile when you all of sudden drop a nuclear bomb onto the conversation.

“Oh, slumming it in steerage with the commoners for the evening huh?”

Another sheepish grin, confused look.

“It’s a Titanic reference. God I hope you’ve seen that at least.”

She couldn’t have been older than 24 at most, a wide-eyes overachiever living in the Big City without a clue in the world. But unlike myself, she had her entire life ahead of her with a Top 1% of resume where she could do whatever she wanted, and the means and smarts to get it to the finish line. What a time to be alive in her shoes I day dreamed.

I was brough back to reality when Pete brough back a tray full of shot glasses with a brown liquor that I could not make out. I downed one, letting the brown poison take hold of my esophagus with its slow burn and distinctly cinnamon aftertaste. A sobering reminder of the fact that she and I were in completely different places in our lives with our own chapters still unwritten.