We Still Have Time

I remember a lot of small things. The kind of things that at the time, you don't think you'll remember.
I remember the first time that I painted my finger nails. The polish was all over my skin. The wooden patio that used to be behind my cousins' dining room had a wooden picnic bench. It was a hot summer day. My aunt was serving celery with peanut butter wedged into the curve of it. I think I licked the peanut butter out, and hid the celery sticks. The color was an almost transparent pink. We went inside and watched Lizzy McGuire.
I remember the time in seventh grade when my uncle invited the family to go to the Kalahari, a hotel/water resort, for the weekend. My cousin, Haley, was at a show choir competition and couldn't come until Sunday night. Her parents said that she could stay, but she said that she didn't want to go to the water park all alone. So she and I stayed over Sunday night and played all Monday. We went to the arcade and played games for hours, and went on every water ride that was open until closing time. With the points we earned at the arcade, we won energy drinks (my first ever: the happy bunny energy drink) and pop rocks. Our hotel room was updated to a suite, so we had a room to ourselves. We put all of the pop rocks in our mouth at the same time. Later that night, we put baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts on to look like guys so that when we walked to the movie theater across the lot we wouldn't be attacked. I think we watched "Adventureland." I don't know who was stupid enough to think that a 12 year old and a 14 year old looked the age to get into a rated R movie, but I'm glad that they let it slide. That was one of the happiest times of my life I think. Just that whole weekend with her. The next day at school I was bragging to all of my friends about how when they were learning algebra, I was partying it up at the Kalahari.
I remember the time that my old crush gave me his phone number. It was my first year in high school. Our show choir was preforming at a school a few hours away. I couldn't tell you which one, but I do remember that it had a circle seating area caved in from the floor. My new found friends and I were laying down on them, singing a boy from our choir's solo competition song. "Take this sinking boat and point it home. We've still got time. Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice. You've made it now." All of my new friends left the circle to go get lunch, except my crush. He said something along the lines of "Hey, Becca, I don't have your number, do I? Weird. What is it?" I didn't have it memorized (I still haven't memorized it to this day), so I had to search through my phone to tell him. When we went to sit down at the table with the rest of the group, I couldn't stop smiling.
It hurts to come to the understanding that I will never re-live these memories. I'll never be able to go back to that hot summer day, with all of my family around me, and my biggest concern being keeping the picnic table nail polish-free. I'll never be able to spend that perfect night with my cousin, again. She's in college now. And I will be too, soon. I'll never be able to have the entire future so far ahead of me, and be as blissful as I was as that lovestruck 14 year old in some sort of a rose-colored haze. And I'll never be as young as I am tonight. It scares me. To think about running out of time. To think about these childhood memories fading away, along with youthful skin and undeniable freedom. The only thing I can hold on to at the moment is this line of a song forever etched into my memory. "We've still got time."