This morning, I put on a short black velvet go-go looking dress, high black boots, tossed my long hair back and skipped off to my car. I pushed the ignition start button, heard the 306 horses roar to life, and popped in a CD I made in ’98 called “Driving Music.” Pulling my beautiful IS350 out of the garage of my home where I left my furry li’l companion chomping away on his breakfast after he walked me downstairs, I bopped to upbeat music (“Fantasy” remix, by Mariah Carey and Old Dirty Bastard) which took me back to the days of driving around UCLA blasting that song in my friend Johnny’s car.

“Beachside, lakeside, or horse property? I wish I had your problems, Cindy,” my ghost said in our phone conversation last night. “I should never have left Southern California,” he said, tracing the roots of his multitude of regrets. His mother just wishes he could get a normal job, marry a nice girl, have a nice normal life. And although it breaks his heart, he can’t explain to her why that is impossible for him now. “That’s all she wants. It’s so simple. And I’m so fucked up.”

Listening to my music from the good ol’ days, half of me went back to the past mindset, and the other half remained (because SOMEONE had to safely operate the vehicle). The two Cindies looked at each other, smiled, and agreed: I have arrived. But I was always arrived; there was never anything wrong with my life. Okay, there were things wrong with people whose lives have at times crossed paths with mine and thus affected me very negatively, but MY life was, on the whole, on track. As with all my friends and loved ones, even the ones who lament.

There was a milk commercial where a young girl looks in the mirror and sees a beautiful young woman looking back at her, and the young woman explains that she’s the girl’s future self, and how she’s healthy and strong because of the years of milk drinking, and then a gorgeous hunk of a man walked into the mirror frame, put his arms around the young woman, and grinned. “Who’s THAT?” the little girl asked. The young woman whispered, “That’s your future boyfriend.” The girl instantly chugged her milk. I think if miserable little Cindy could have looked in that mirror and caught a glimpse of 31-year-old Cindy now with her hot wonderful fiance and promising life, she would’ve had a lot more to look forward to than she knew. Boo to me that it took listening to someone whose life path had gone horribly off-track to appreciate mine.