One of my favorite aspects of growing older is gaining new perspective on old thoughts and associations. Most people dread getting older, but I've always looked forward to it -- even as a child I never wanted to sit in a high chair because I saw the older people sitting at the main table; I never crawled, instead I insisted to cruise around in a somewhat-dangerous walker; and the day I was able to drive and work, that is exactly what I did.

We used to come to Port Aransas with my maternal grandparents and my mom's sister's family nearly every summer. I have vague recollections of being very young, probably about four or five, and climbing around in the dunes. I remember the thick, rubbery St. Augustine grass that my cousins and my sister and I would run around on, until our feet were covered in painful sticker burrs that hid in the ground. There are photos of me wearing only a ripped leopard print tank top that used to be my mom's, sitting in a dune, my hair blowing across my face, looking rather fierce. The ocean was something that exhilarated and frightened me all at once.

Port Aransas has become one of the most timeless places in my life -- while Austin pops up skyscrapers daily and sprawls northward to Georgetown, Port Aransas has managed to keep its rustic charm, despite a new golf course and resort under development on the opposite side of the island from the rest of the condos.

We stopped going to Port Aransas annually somewhere around the time when my grandmother got Alzheimer's, perhaps because it was too hard to travel with her. My cousins and I were also growing older, finding other things to keep us occupied during the summer. Up until last year, we had gone on a hiatus from Port Aransas for nearly ten years.

I first returned here with one of my old coworkers, in May of 2006, for Memorial Day. Her family had a fishing boat and being a closet fishing addict, I jumped at the chance to go along. I remember driving up into Aransas Pass, which is the town before you get to the ferry that takes you across to Port Aransas jetty. I kept remarking on everything I remembered, amazed that it all looked so familiar after so much time. My experience was different on that trip -- I'd never gone out into the channel in a boat to fish (my mom and I had always fished off a pier). We spent the weekend catching redfish and trout and sitting around in their camper drinking wine. I came home and told my mom that we really ought to try to return to the beach again.

Since then, I dragged Captain Asshat down here for Labor Day last year, just before he left. We had a hilarious time that was forever memorialized in my blog entry about our trip on the Texas Treasure casino boat and the hotel employee smashing into my car only minutes after we got there. A few months later, my family went back for Thanksgiving. I remember being sick and incredibly melancholy, as Captain Asshat had left only a month before. I moped around most of the weekend, wondered how on earth I was going to get through the next twelve months of my life, and thought about what Thanksgiving 2007 would bring. My predictions now seem so incredibly naive.

Then in May of this year, I offhandedly mentioned to AJ that we should organize a girl's group to Port Aransas for Memorial Day. What ensued was one of the most idyllic and poignant weekends, something that even a movie probably couldn't capture. The weekend was a turning point for me of sorts, when I realized that friendship would always trump whatever misery you had weighing on your shoulders. We explored the bar scene in Port Aransas, were solicited by strange waiters who believed in psychics, and found ourselves wandering down the beach at 4 AM laughing hysterically.

Port Aransas hopefully will never change. The Island Retreat, where my family has been coming since I was in diapers, will hopefully never lose its 1970s shell hangings on the wall or the somewhat mildewed smell of carpet that has been tread upon one too many times. I hope I can always come to Port Aransas, look out at the grassy lawn leading into the dunes and remember being four years old, doing cartwheels and playing tag with my cousins and sister; twelve years old and doing backflips into the pool; twenty two and sitting on the beach with someone I loved; a drunken four AM walk back to the hotel, arms slung across the shoulders of friends who understand you; even this, the now, listening to the ocean and watching the gulls fly just above the waves on the horizon. With memories like those, I don't think I could ever feel old here.