Those Nights Kept Us Alive

12:45, quarter to one We're talking all night, talking all night, all night 1:45, quarter to two We're talking all night, all night, yeah baby---Hall and Oates
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Remember when we'd
Stay up late and we'd talk all night
In a dark room lit by the tv light
Through all the hard times in my life
Those nights kept me alive---Skillet

Many a night in my teens and my twenties were spent talking all night. Though I’ve done this a few times recently (dating my wife before the marriage) the resultant energy hemorrhage was a high price to pay the following day. What kind of magic is it that allowed us those nights of deep, hallowed talk in our youth?


We would set up lawn chairs on Mike’s front lawn. Three in the morning or so a neighbor or a parent would come out and yell at us to keep it down. When I lived in the ‘House of Guys’ I’d get up for OJ and invariably one of the roommates would be up also. Many a long night’s discussion started in the kitchen and was cut short because we knew the next day was a work day. Still I don’t recall the physical or mental affects to be nearly as brutal as they would today.

In my mother’s later years she kept no normal hours. She would often be puttering about late nights; working in the kitchen or watching late night television. She was happy to get in a discussion and keep at it way beyond what my internal time clock indicated was possible.

I hope that in old age some of the magic of those long nights will be restored. For those were magic nights. Issues seemed daunting but never overwhelming. The talking, the laughing and the believing kept us alive.