On October 5, my countdown began: 30 days until my 30th birthday. In honor of this, on each of the 30 days leading up to my birthday I will recount one memory from the past 30 years… either one that has helped define me, one that makes me laugh, one that makes me think, one that encourages me…  or maybe a little of everything. If possible, I will post a photo to go along with the memory.

It’s my 30/30/30 Project: 30 years. 30 memories. 30 days.

Here is my memory for Day #7:

Audrey and I spent the summer of 1999 in New York City. I had just finished my freshman year at Bowdoin and I was taking a course at NYU. Audrey was going into her senior year of college and interning for The View.

Hands down, it was one of the very best summers of my life.

We lived in an NYU dorm in Union Square. There was so much excitement and activity all around us, at all hours. I had lived in rural Maine for the previous nine months, in a town that pretty much shut down at 8:00pm. But here in NYC… well, it was a different world.

There are a few things that always stand out in my mind from that summer…

Like all the late-night pizza we ate. Many a midnight that summer Audrey and I would look at each other and say, “Want to get some pizza?” And we would just walk to the pizza place next door to our dorm. We never wanted for a late-night snack.

I walked to my class a few blocks away every day, and I remember that on particularly hot days, when I’d pass a store with air conditioning, I would pop in and pretend I was browsing just to get cool for a few minutes.

There was a farmers’ market each weekend and Audrey and I loved walking through and picking out fresh produce.

Audrey and I rarely skipped a day at the gym. We each paid $90 for the summer, which was quite a deal, although we should have known by the gym’s name – Johnny Lats – that we would be the only non-bodybuilders there.

I had sushi for the first time that summer, thanks to one of those bodybuilders. They called him Forklift and to this day, I don’t know his real name. All summer, he had looked out for me and Audrey at the gym like an older brother, so when he invited me to lunch I said yes.

But one of my favorite memories from that summer in the city came on one hot, humid evening and involved our suite mate, Amy.

Our suite had two rooms and a common area. Audrey and I had one of the rooms to ourselves, and before we moved in, we didn’t know who would be in the other room.

We were fortunate enough to get matched up with Amy (and another girl, too, but she had a boyfriend in the city and was literally never around). Amy, Audrey and I became fast friends in the weeks we lived together.

Amy even came home to RI with us for the 4th of July weekend to celebrate with my family (the town my parents lived in at the time has the longest continually running Independence Day parade in the country, so it’s a big deal there).

One super hot evening that summer, Amy and I decided to eat dinner at a little outdoor cafe. Why we didn’t opt for an air conditioned spot in that 100 degree heat I don’t recall, but nonetheless, we sweated it out together as we ate our meal.

Amy and I were exactly the same age and had a lot in common, so we always had wonderful chats. I don’t remember the specifics of our conversation that evening, but I am sure we were just enjoying spending time together, as always.

An older woman pushing a baby carriage started to walk past us on the sidewalk. She stopped and looked at us, and then said something like, “You know, I have to tell you, I was walking down the street looking at how hot and miserable everyone is, but the sight of you two sitting out here smiling and laughing together made me forget for a moment just how hot and humid it is outside.”

I don’t even know why, but that moment has stuck with me, and makes me smile whenever I think of it. Maybe because it just reminds me what a great friendship is… it can make you forget the bad stuff around you as you enjoy each other’s company.

I don’t have a photo of us on the day we sat outside in the summer heat; this was taken on the 4th of July that summer, hence the heavy-on-the-red-white-and-blue wardrobes. That also explains my blue sunglasses, as there is just no other excuse for those.

[Note: I have shared this memory before; two years ago, just after Amy’s wedding. It has always stuck out in my mind as a favorite memory from that summer in NYC, however, so I wanted to re-share it for this project.]