A Trip Down Memory Lane

The past seems very close by lately. I’ve been rereading some of my oldest entries here. Most of them are private beyond about eight years ago. I have 1,267 entries, about 40% of which are private. All of those private entries are from college and high school. Still, I felt compelled to go back and read them. It’s strange to realize how much I’ve forgotten! I couldn’t tell you anything about the movie "The Usual Suspects," but apparently I’ve seen it. I had forgotten all about some of the parties at John K’s house, yet they were a vivid part of my summer once. I can’t even remember who Curtis is, but apparently I thought he was cute once. I even forgot that I hooked up with Randy while I was still dating Ira and just how spectacularly Randy and I fell apart. I forgot just how much I was already falling apart, long before I ever suspected it was bipolar disorder.

This all coincides rather neatly with the fact that when I checked my e-mail this morning, I had a friend request on Facebook from Anna, one of my oldest friends. In all seriousness, I’d been trying to find her on Facebook or just online for ages, but Anna Swan is a surprisingly common name. I did have a gut feeling that she would keep Swan as part of her name no matter what. She always loved it and she had no affection for her father, so she would never keep her maiden name. It’s so odd though that after all this time, she suddenly resurfaces. She even tagged me in a couple photos on a mutual friend’s page from back in high school color guard.

Well, not to let my nostalgia dissipate too quickly, I decided to scan some photos from high school, particularly from band and color guard. Now you get to see them. Aren’t you excited?

Me at band camp as a sophomore

For reference, band camp was nothing like the American Pie movies would have you believe. It was two weeks in August where we spent Monday thru Friday from 9-8 out on Andrew’s Field, which actually meant the parking lot of Andrew’s Field because the field itself was practically a swamp and we were okay with letting the football team have it. See those gloves? This is probably the day after I ripped all the skin off my palms when I fell trying to run backwards for 25 yards in 8 counts.

My friend Katie and I practicing the opening dance of the show on a field somewhere. Judging by the palm trees in the background, I’d say this is practice for the Orange Bowl in Florida:

 

At Disney World. Band trips were so much fun, even if we all had to wear green everywhere. Me, Nelson, Jen, and Anna:

My first real boyfriend, Brett (with Nelson in the background), at Disney World. He was in the drumline:

On the way back from Disney, at a random truckstop because one of the buses broke down. I suppose it was a good thing it was January so even in Georgia it wasn’t hot:

Freshman Year, "A" Guard:

Junior Year, Marching Band. We had to wear our hair in these ridiculous braids all over. A bunch of use would get together at Jen’s house and we’d braid each other’s hair with the help her mom and another band mom:

 

I guess that can be it. I really don’t know why I wore such baggy clothes back then. I had a great body under there! LOL Chalk it up to being 15, I guess.

Our car is finally finished and ready to be picked up. I’m just not sure when that’s going to happen now. My dad is in Denver and we were planning to have him take me over to get the car and then go out to lunch with Alan, but he was borrowing Aaron’s car and now he can’t. So we’ll probably have to get Sims to take us over there so that we can get this all straightened out. Honestly, I’m never going to use this place again. They’ve been spectacularly unhelpful and downright oppositional at times. We also didn’t get the AER loan because they wanted two estimates and it had to be applied for before the work was done. Well, we wouldn’t have needed it except that the computer issue happened after the other work was done. We weren’t going to pay for that, then drag the car back and forth from shop to shop to get other estimates on the computer work. So we’re paying most of it by signing over a check my dad wrote me and the rest from Alan’s pay. And if they give me a hard time about it, I’m going to go fucking ballistic. ^_^

Anyway, we’re having dinner at Captain Souza’s house tonight and I’m making arroz con leche for dessert because apparently it’s a whole Mexican themed pot luck and that’s the only Mexican thing I know how to make. It still requires that I go to the grocery store, unfortunately, since I have almost none of the ingredients.

I’m feeling rather homesick right now. Maybe going to the Captain’s house will help. I’m just getting tired of biting my tongue about certain things and I’m really tired of the repeated invitations to go to church with the Faulks. I have nothing against most religious beliefs. I was brought up in a weird mixture of Congregational and Catholic (both Anglican and Roman). I do have a problem with most non-denominational Christian churches, because they tend to be the least accepting and the most vocal about the fact that everyone else is going to hell. And of course there’s a huge non-denom. population here… and the Faulks belong to that kind of church. Maybe I would go if they were Episcopal or Catholic, but you’re not getting me in one of those places unless I’m unconscious at the time. And that makes me sad. Because it represents a serious difference of opinion, maybe an insurmountable one, that could keep Charlee and me from ever being as close as we would be if she were almost any other religion.

~Liz