For the first time, I write from an airplane.I'm on the way to Austin for the weekend to reunite with a college club that has a permanent place in my heart and soul: the Japanese Association at UT. Today's their once-a-year spring festival, and for the first time we alumni have used the occasion to try to get an alumni chapter off the ground. Amazingly, everyone's taking it seriously. Alumni such as myself are reuniting from around the world, with thanks to our fearless leader known as Tots. He was the founding president, so he has much more heart-and-soul invested than I, but the guy's so hardcore he flew from Singapore to Austin to see his baby grow up just a little more. When he did this, it was hard to keep saying no to coming in from Cali for a weekend. So here I am. As I sit on the plane, I get more and more excited. This weekend is more than a reunion with the boys [my affectionate name for my old roommates], or a reunion with a group of wonderful people not unlike a fraternity. [UT readers, take heart - that takes on a positive meaning at most other universities, I've learned. And that's how I mean it.] And it's certainly a lot more than an 18+ party late at night in downtown Austin. No, this is a return to my youth. Grad students are generally in their late 20s and begin to feel the age. Lines to the effect of "I'm not in college anymore" or "I can't do that anymore" are said with shocking frequency. The all-night fun and parties don't necessarily end forever at 25, but they do take more effort than they used to. And they still might end all together at 30. We'll see. Tonight's party will be the only way to do it - with the same group I traipsed around with three years ago. At the same nightclub, even.The moral of this story is that there is a difference between 22 and 25 or 26. And that opportunities like this will be rare, even if our little alumni association takes off in the best possible way. Alumni associations are for networking and helping current members of the club get jobs and the occasional trip down Memory Lane. Partying's an afterthought. We're all still young, but that won't last forever. People will continue their inevitable spread around the globe, and convocations like these will host fewer and fewer people who have little spaces in my heart for being there with me when we did it all the first time around. Tonight's gathering already lost one soldier to work-related conditions. As I sit on the plane, my phone is blasting the same albums I blasted three years ago in my car: m-flo's Astromantic, Crazy Ken Band's 777. After I land, I get to party with my favorite one-time roommates, and I get to enjoy quality time and party some more with a group that has always taken care of me and had my back. Never mind my notoriously expensive tastes. My drink may now be Maker's Mark or a well-aged Suntory, but for now, I'm drinking Jack and Cokes and eating Cheese Nips, as if it were a UT football game day. For a night, I get to be 22 again. The words "I'm so happy I could cry" don't really hold water - the feeling I have isn't happiness. It's still positive for sure, but it's a deeper sensation than happiness, something that touches the soul more than happiness. But as I sit on this plane, I'm tearing up a little nonetheless.