Then I went off to school and met the girls that changed my idea of friendship forever.  Girls that taught me about loving unconditionally and how loyalty fights better and stronger than any heavy weight champ on the planet.  Girls that took me dancing, kept me up late, and blessed me with the knowledge of good naps and  box fans.  Girls that challenged my ideals and graciously helped me to put on the freshmen fifteen (or forty).

Lauren taught me about work ethic and how sometimes you have to be by yourself to get things done.  She swam with me before the sun came up and she left notes on my door and books on my bed and every once in a while she’d play the piano for me and I think I knew then that there really was a Somewhere over the rainbow.

Ann was always the one with the spunk begging me to go out, to see people, to do things that were out of my realm of comfort and to wear mascara while I did them.  She made me stand up for myself and believe in myself and when I was lying at rock bottom, she was standing over me in a pink and leopard print halter top telling the psycho that left me there to back up or die. 

And then there was Kathryn.  Sweet Kathryn who kept me grounded and sane and laughing at imaginary kittens and the new girlfriends of old boyfriends.  She wrote notes to me during chapter meetings and was marching right behind me when I figured out that I wasn’t made for the sorority life.  And when I came home from Australia and said I was moving to Oxford because I wasn’t strong enough to go back to Starkville, she said, “Then I’m coming, too.” 

I don’t remember exactly when I started writing down the list, but I know I did it because of them. 

Maybe it was in a dorm room on the sixth floor of Rice or maybe it was when we were making folders for all of our travel plans.  Or it could have been when we went on that scandalous trip to the beach.  Or one night in that purple Accord with its windows down.  Or in Granny and Pop Pop’s house on a long weekend.  On top bunks and futons or in the midst of The Intervention.  At the reservoir eating sticky buns.  In Derek and Craig’s living room floor.  Over bread pudding at Oby’s. 

So, here’s what I wrote down on some random day when I was 18 or so.  A list of all the things I wanted to do before I turned 30.  My little List o’ Dreams.

Back then, 30 sure seemed far away.

I think I’d like to be a pirate.

I can paint pictures in my head of swords and tall ships and pirate flags a flyin’.  And sometimes I can feel the roll of the ocean and taste the salt in the air.  I can hear their songs and cannons ringing out in the night and their longings for merchant ships and adventures and a lawless life at sea sneak into my childlike imagination.

Yes, I think I’d like to be a pirate.

Or maybe stories about Anne Bonny and Mary Read just make me feel brave.  Or it could be that I’ve listened to Jimmy Buffett’s issues with aging one too many times.  Or perhaps I think that Blackbeard could have stolen my heart along with the rest of his treasures.

Then again, maybe I’m just a bit of a dreamer.  A dreamer that wouldn’t mind billowing blouses, barefeet on boatdecks, or sunsets out at sea.

This post inspired by my future first mate and The Ballad of the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen.