After (Five Minute Friday)

It's Friday - time to write what's on your heart, for 5 minutes.  The rules are simple, and the fun is immeasurable.  Won't you come write with us?

Here's how it works:
1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt “After” with no editing, tweaking or self critiquing.
2. Link up here and invite others to join in .
3. Go and tell the person who linked up before you what their words meant to you. Every writer longs to feel heard.

Ok, are you ready? The word of the week is AFTER.

Go.
There's so many places my thoughts run with the word after.  Life is all divided into a series of before and after, really. After college. After marriage. After kids. After divorce. After winter.  After school ends.  and so on.

BUT - as a kid from Flanders, NJ, "After" has an altogether different context - one that brings back happy memories. You see, we have this little restaurant, called "The After".  It's a charbroil burger kind of place, but I remember it for the ice cream. (Who doesn't love ice cream?) We used to go to the After after everything. Band concerts. Tricky Trays. School plays. Dentist appointments. (yes, ice cream on squeaky shiny teeth ... but that's a story for another day). With friends, with family. With younger siblings we didn't want along so we made them sit under the table. Birthday parties. Breakfast on a weekend. Did I mention late nights after band concerts (marching band ... and middle school orchestra ... and elementary school everything). The After is a part of so many Flanders lives ... and every time I go home, we drive by. And my memories come flooding back.

Come to think of it, I don't know that my kiddos have ever been to The After. TRAGEDY.  Hey mom - when we come home next, I think an ice cream run is in store ... meet me at The After, won't you?

Stop.