Friday, October 15, 2010
Making Moves.
Closing Time
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Back to the Basics
Last week after much debate and pride swallowing, I visited my high school. It had been five years since I walked those halls yet somehow they still looked the same, they still smelled the same. Entering into the main building I immediately noticed the paper football jerseys and obnoxious posters screaming slogans of school spirit covering every inch of the walls. Continuing down the hall, I spotted a banner displaying our school’s fight song above a group of lockers and laughed at the fact that I still knew every word. Memories of sporting events and intense rivalries came flooding back to me and I couldn’t help but feel like that part of my life was just yesterday, while at the same time feeling like it was centuries ago. Nerves consumed me as I pulled opened the door to my old favorite teacher’s classroom and saw thirty seventeen-year-old honors English students staring back at me. I immediately looked to the corner, my corner, where I spent two semesters during senior year desperately trying to hide my endless texting conversations and notes being passed from Mr. Powell’s wandering eye. He always seemed to catch me though, which was most likely why I was quite the regular when it came to being sent to the hall. Apparently talking to my neighbor during lectures was not acceptable then and looking back now, I guess I can admit that I was probably pretty rude. Lucky for Powell, the girl currently occupying my old seat looked fairly respectful and way too timid to break any rules or challenge the authority, as I would have in my day.
After introductions and explanations about who I was, why I was there and a few low blows from Powell about how old I have gotten, I assumed the position in the back of the classroom, ready to hear the lecture of the day. Of course I drowned out the first five minutes, scanning the room and looking intently at each of the students. It seemed like just yesterday I was in their place, so young and impressionable yet so sure of myself and my place in the world. I watched them watch him, I watched them listen to him and I wondered if I ever listened to him as intently as they did. Probably not. As I tuned back in to Mr. Powell’s lecture I realized I must’ve been paying attention to something five years ago as I recognized his lesson and remembered the days, though long ago, that I too read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”.
“This is the perfect lecture for you to sit in on,” Powell said as he turned and looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. It was right about then that I should’ve known he had something up his sleeve. “After I’m done, how about you give a little speech on your own life and how the Allegory of the Cave can be applied to it.” He said while turning back to his own speech and the illegible diagram he had drawn on the white board. As I sat there shocked over the fact that I was now unwillingly about to be a part of the lesson plan, my mind started racing to find the right words to say.
Taking this next step in life, leaving my family, friends and the comfortable life I have come to know so well is my way of creating my own reality. In an overly cheesy yet very obvious literary comparison, I am leaving the “cave” and my own comfort zone, only to meet new people, have new adventures and develop different perceptions on life, as I know it. And while I won’t completely change as I did both physically and mentally from freshman to senior year of high school, I can only hope that parts of me will grow now too. I hope that this move will push me to continue on the never-ending journey to reach my full potential as a person.
“Take it away,” He said as he finished his thoughts and effortlessly transitioned into what was supposed to be my big grand finale. It was then that the scattered thoughts that had been bouncing off the walls in my head left my mouth and streamed quickly out into sentences. I started talking about life, the places you go, the people you meet and how quickly things change. How quickly your realities and the things you believe to be the truest can change. I told them that you have the ability to design the life you want to lead and that all of their journeys will be very different, but have the potential to be just as rewarding as the next. I told them that traveling has shown me that the earth is big, but our world is small and that every person I have met and conversation had has influenced me in one-way or another. I told the bright-eyed students to focus on the current reality of senior year and I told them not to worry because they have time. So much time.
A few minutes later, I was making the trek through the endless and nearly empty parking lot when I turned and took one last look at the old school. The memories of homecoming dances and tennis matches, standardized tests and really terrible first kisses all came rushing back to me. I thought of the person I was then compared to the person I am now and how much farther I must go to get to where I want to be. And I realized that no matter how far life takes me from where I have been, it is always nice to know you can go back to the basics, back to 12th grade English class to figure yourself out or at least apply your life to a classic allegory, both of which I have found to be equally as rewarding.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Under Construction
Life moves fast. Way too fast and sometimes just when we think we've got everything all under control we hit a speed bump, swerve into another lane, or we quit paying attention and accidentally run a red light. The surprise of losing control for even just a split second is enough to make us think about things and more often than not, for me, it is an indication that I need to slow down.
Currently, I am in the process of slowing down. Here at home, I am planning, designing, creating, resting, healing, and under going some much needed construction and revamping. I am in neutral right now, caught between the fast paced life I led in Seattle and the new life I will embark on in a few short weeks. And though this neutral can at times be boring, slow, and frustrating, I am learning to appreciate the down time and everything that comes with it.
So, after two more necessary weeks of recharging my batteries and regaining my strength, i'll be off on a new adventure, starting another chapter, and desperately trying to catch up to life.
PS- with this new chapter comes a new blog. Look for it soon!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Two Steps Forward, One Look Back.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Pieces of Me
Thursday, July 22, 2010
First things First.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Growing Pains.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Rock of Love.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Rites of Passage.
"You're Insane" my mom gasped as she read over my flight itinerary. "Brutal" Taylor replied when I ran through my weekend plans for the hundredth time. "You are not going to be a real person when you get back to Seattle" Madison empathized Wednesday night as I was packing my bags and triple checking my To-Do and To-Pack lists.
Real person I am not as I find myself five days later, once again at my favorite coffee shop in the city. This time surrounded by water bottles, used tissues, and Emergen-C packets, all testaments to one of the busiest, craziest, and greatest weekends that I have had in a very long time. As I run through the weekends events in my head, the flights, the friends, and the copious amounts of alcohol I consumed, I can't help but think that the sickness that is currently fogging my head and filling my nose is totally one hundred percent worth it. It was all worth it.
It wasn't long after my flight touched down in Austin, Texas on Thursday afternoon that I was cursing Seattle's name for not preparing my abnormally white skin for the Southern summer sun and the 90% humidity that hit me like a brick as I stepped off the plane. It was about five minutes later that I found myself in the airport bar, Corona in one hand, and my dear friend Casey's hand in the other. We talked, laughed, and reminisced as we anxiously awaited more of our friends' arrivals in Austin for a weekend we had all been looking forward to for months. Later that night I looked around the table as 18 of my favorite girls sat down for happy hour and I couldn't help but smile. Though it may have been a year since we were all together, and though our lives have taken us in different directions, to different cities and down different paths, there we were, as if no time had passed at all.
As I stood to make a toast a short while later, emotion overcame me when I realized that this was the first of many of its kind. The first of many college reunions, many wild weekends, and the first one of us to jump head first into love, into life, and into forever. "To Casey" I gushed, holding my glass of wine high. "To her happiness, to her love, and to sending her off right."
Well, "sending her off right" turned out to be an understatement, as we took the term bachelorette party to a whole new level, ravaging our way through Austin's bars, restaurants, and of course, infamous taco stands. At some point between vodka/pickle juice shots and quite the run in with a mechanical bull on the first night, I looked at Casey as she was dancing around the bar (twenty minutes before she retired for the night... at roughly eleven pm) and realized that i've never seen her happier.
"I'm ready" she told me the next morning over a breakfast taco and a coffee. I had just finished telling her how far away from marriage I am, how terrified I am of pregnant women, and how I am still learning how to take care of myself, let alone another person, when she looked at me and said "When you know, you just know and then you just go for it." And while I couldn't be more excited for her, I couldn't have been more thankful that I was not the one wearing the white veil all weekend.
4:30 am came way too soon on Saturday morning as I crept out of the hotel room, leaving behind two of my sleeping roommates and best friends from college. My mind was all over the place as I struggled to keep my eyes open in the airport security line, running on only an hour of sleep. Finding my seat on the plane, I closed my eyes and thanked God that I made my flight. "I can do this" I encouraged myself, right before falling asleep. Four hours later I woke up in Washington.
"You're crazy" Darcy said as she picked me up from the airport in our home town, making fun of my mismatched outfit and terribly dirty hair. I'm not too sure what I said in response, as it most likely wasn't English. But four hours, a long nap, and a thirty minute shower later, I was back in the game, ready to go. Driving through Idaho, (the fourth state I had been in that day) I laughed out loud as I received a few indecipherable texts from the bachelorette party which was still raging on in a boat somewhere on Lake Austin. Though I was sad to leave Texas and unsatisfied with the short amount of time I spent with the girls, those feelings disappeared as I stepped out of the car and into the arms of my best friend from high school.
"Thank you so much for coming" Nicole sighed. And we walked arm and arm toward the cabin, the backyard and the place where her older brother was getting married an hour later. The scenery took my breath away as I signed the guest book, hugging old friends and near-family members. Sitting in the front row next to her family, the family I practically lived with throughout high school, trying to cure my hangover with a cold IPA, and the sun reflecting off the lake, I could not have been happier with my decision to attend the bachelorette party and the wedding. And once again I was overcome with emotion as her brother, my brother walked down the aisle arm and arm with his parents. "Where has the time gone?" I thought to myself as I wiped tears from my face, cursing under my breath for leaving my sunglasses in the car. The ceremony continued on and continued to be absolutely, undeniably, incredible. I found myself making eye contact with my dear friend Nicole midway through the ceremony, and as she mouthed to me "thank you, I love you" once again, I knew I had never been in a more perfect place.
Many tears, many glasses of red wine, a few stuffed mushrooms, and a double chocolate cake shot later, I found myself on the dance floor. As "Brown Eyed Girl" played and one of the groomsmen did the ever-so-popular "shopping cart" move next to me, the rain started to fall. Slowly at first, and then in huge drops, causing the band to unplug and sending many people running for shelter in the cabin. Somewhere in the madness I ended up in the bed of a red truck dancing with the grooms father as the rain pelted me, soaking my pink dress and melting away the last of the make-up that my tears had missed earlier. Fast forward an hour, a dance party in the kitchen, and more red wine (that I really didn't need), and I was in the red truck once again. This time, hand in hand with the owner of the truck who was one of the groom's good friends from college. Nicole was in the back seat with his roommate, and the four of us were toasting. Toasting to the newlyweds, to the fact that we are still all single, and to the country music that was blaring from the speakers of the red truck, keeping everyone in the cabin and in the tents a few yards away awake.
In the morning while I gathered my belongings, my shoes that had gone missing midway through the reception, and embarrassingly tried to explain to everyone in the lake cabin that the neon pink "party" sweat pants I was wearing, were a result of a glitch in my "To-Pack" list, I spotted the newly married couple as they emerged from their master suite hand-in-hand. "They were ready." I thought to myself. "They just knew". And on the drive back across the state to the west side and to my bed (which had never sounded better), I thought a lot about the weekends events. I thought about the future bachelorette parties, the weddings, the children, and I thought about the passing of time. As I sat in silence, trying to imagine my own bachelorette party, my wedding, my kids (eek!), I realized that i've got time. Time to be young, time to do insane things like fly across the country and back in 36 hours, time to find myself in a big red truck in the pouring rain, cuddling with a perfect stranger, and time to run myself into the ground, not caring about consequences or the repercussions on my tired body. I've got So much time.
And though I may not be a real person right now, tomorrow is a new day, and with it comes more time, the hope of a clearer head and less runny nose, and the notion that it is all, always worth it.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Skeletons in Our Closets.
Recently I found myself driving East. For me, the hustle and bustle of the big city is sometimes just too much and a break from the noise is exactly what I need to regain my sanity. East is my home and spending a weekend surrounded by family and old friends, in the comfort of the house I grew up in, is often what it takes to ground me, to remind me of who I once was, who I am now, and how far I've come.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Happily Unsatisfied.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Rookies of the Year.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Age is Just a Number
"You look happy " he said as he spun me around to the music and lyrics of Garth Brooks.