May 02, 2002 | 4:05 PM

The last time I was feeling this way was the Spring of 1998.

I was sitting in Eric�s apartment on a weekday evening very shortly after I had moved into Amy�s studio. Very shortly after I�d had an abortion. Very shortly after John and I were really and truly and finally broken up. And very shortly before I slept with Angus for the first and only time.

Eric and I had just popped open a couple Warschteiners. We were lounging about, slowly sipping our beers, and listening to Etta James. All was silent save for the beautiful sounds emanating from the speakers and endless refrain of car horns wafting in through the windows. We wer both lost in our own daydreams when suddenly Eric looked up at me and with great gusto asked,

Do you feel like getting out of here?

I deliberated.

Where do you wanna do? You wanna go grab a beer somewhere or something?

No, I mean I really want to get out of here. Like out of the state.

My face lit up.

Road trip?

Eric�s face lit up.

Yeah. Road trip.

I thought about my friend Rosella who I hadn�t seen or talked to in a year. She of the alabaster skin and hydroponic weed. As far as I knew, Rosella was still attending school in Vermont. I happened to have her number on me, so I chanced a call. When we spoke, it was as though I had just talked to her yesterday.

What are you up to?

Eh, not much. I�m just pulling tubes and reading Rimbaud. You know, the usual.

Want some company?

Sure.

OK. Eric and I will be there in like six hours. Is it cool if we crash on your floor for a few days?

Yeah. Of course. Or we could all sleep outside.

Ahhhhh... sleeping outside.

The whole idea was sounding better and better.

Eric and I threw a cooler full of beer in the back of his car, grabbed a fistfull of CD�s, and we were off into the darkness.

We sang along at the top of our lungs to the Indigo Girls and Dar Williams and Jefferson Airplane other beautiful hippy shit that seemed appropriate to our expedition. As we got farther and farther from Boston, the stars came out of their hiding places and illuminated our journey. We were the only ones on the road and the road was ours and open to us like a book you can�t stop reading. It was magical. We laughed and laughed and were overjoyed at how much freedom we had. We didn�t have to stay anywhere. We could go and go and go.

We drove all night and decided we were going to get married. We talked about what we should name our kids and where in Europe we were going to live. We recited Yeats to each other and once we pulled the car over the shoulder and we got out and jumped up and down and hugged each other and twirled around and around because life had suddenly become so beautiful.

When we got to Northern Vermont it was dawn and moose ambled lazily down the road in front of us. The air was clear and smog free. We had breakfast at a diner where all the stools were tree stumps and the bacon was so thick and fresh, we imagined it had just been killed out back.

It was fun seeing Rosella, but it was the going itself I�ll always remember. The rush of belonging not to time or to some job or responsibility, but to each other and to love itself.

I want that again.

I want it now.