The year was 1986. My home, a typical home in Suburbia, USA. My life, a typical American teenager, filled with angst and dissatisfaction at my lot in life. Little did I realize how that life would soon change.

The summer of my sixteenth year was hot and humid, as most summers were in sunny Florida. My car was an old Chevy with the cloth interior roof held up by thumbtacks, the best I could afford on the money I saved working nights after school at the local movie theatre. Weekends I'd drive to my boyfriend's house, past the streetwalkers trying to make a buck on the filthy streets of the inner city.

We'd drive to the beach, to the park, anywhere to get away and be by ourselves. Parking by the airport, we'd watch the planes take off and land and dream of what it would be like to be inside them, but mostly they looked like stars, bright lights twinkling in the heavens that moved too fast for us to keep up. Our dreams were big, possibilities were endless, and we had each other.

When we graduated school, we said our tearful goodbyes when he left to go to basic training. Weeks felt like months, months felt like years, and we couldn't stand to be apart. You never think of what heartache really means until you feel it, that dull yearning ache that can only be satisfied by the presence of the one you love.

Love, marriage, travels to distant lands followed all too soon. We realized the restlessness we felt when young wasn't angst, it was ambition, desire to begin our lives anew. Good or bad, mistakes and all, our lives were our own, and we couldn't wait to get started. We hadn't been running from suburbia; we were running to our future and our dreams...together.