Smelling The Roses At Midnight

When I got home last night after practice my roommate was sitting on the front porch of our house.  She saw me pull up, smiled and waved.  It was 11:45 pm.  The porch light wasn't on.  She hasn't locked herself outside.  There's a spare key hidden in a very secret location and I know she knows about it because I just told her where it was last week.  I return the wave.
"Hey!"
"Haaaayy"
"What are ya doin'?
"Just sitting.  It's such a beautiful night - and I was at Bonnie's drinking beer," suddenly this made a whole lot more sense, "and then I got lost," she gestured with her phone, "in the internet.  And I didn't want to look for my keys."  I wondered to myself how long she had been sitting there in the dark.  It was difficult to say.  She continued on,
"I was surprised to see you!  It's late."
"Yeah, I was at practice.  It's late to be sitting on the porch too."
"Not if we were in Spain."  This seems like a non-sequitor except that she took a trip to Spain last summer.  "In Spain everyone sits on their porch in late at night and drinks beer."  It was at this point I elected to go inside and she followed.
"If you don't mind, I'm going to glom on to the fact that you seem to know the location of your keys."
My roomates life hasn't always been easy; sometimes because of things that have happened to her and sometimes because of the choices she's made.  Because of that she's one of the most fascinating people I know and many afternoons have been wasted away simply listening to her stories.  They're made all the more interesting because there are huge parts of her life that due to the passage of time, her frame of mind during the experience or her own poor abilities to recollect that she simply doesn't remember.  Now that she has taken the time to put herself together and once again ventures out into the world she's constantly rediscovering the parts of her life that were left behind in bars, lovers and house parties.
I've learned a lot from her too.  I've learned that if you want to redefine your lifestyle you can, no matter how drastic the change.  I've learned that reinventing yourself isn't a process you do once and then forget.  You have to keep on doing it to learn and grow.  I've seen firsthand that a smile and a sense of optimism can overcome even the kinds of tragedies you'd prefer to believe didn't happen to people that you know, and that are thankfully absent from my own life.
I've learned that if you've just come home and it's a beautiful night, you should take a minute - or an hour- to breathe it in and remember how good it is to be alive.
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<posted on 4.11.12>