Leaving it behind

Our friend BP stopped by just after my study group left one night. He came into my room where I was putting the finishing touches on the homework set we had just finished and began to talk, "I was downstairs at PJ's just now. I came by because I wanted to talk to him, but his girlfriend Lara came by a few minutes after I did."


Hearing Lara's name still hurt a bit but, not wanting to BP to catch on, I murmured agreeably.

"She comes in and plops down in the chair that PJ was sitting in. The whole time I was trying to talk him, she is sitting on top of him and touching him. Doesn't he know how much that bothers me since my break up? I don't want to see that."

Mentally I'm thinking, "I don't want to hear this. Can't he tell how much this is hurting me?", but now BP is on a roll venting and all I can do is try to partially tune him out. My lack of response finally had its desired effect when BP left, seemingly relieved at having told someone who understood how tortured he felt and seemingly oblivious to the pain he had just pushed onto me.


I sat on the floor of my room, surrounded by a haze of depression and emotional pain. My friend from across the hall came over with her copy of our homework and settled down to work, but I couldn't keep my focus on my textbook. I wanted to be smaller somehow and protected from all this pain. Without saying a word I got up from the floor and went into the bathroom. I left the lights off, feeling safer in the pitch dark room, and went into the far corner of the shower stall where I sat with my arms around my raised knees.


At first it was difficult to quiet my rioting thoughts and I was afraid of someone coming in to find me. What would they think of me hiding in a completely dark shower stall? But after a few minutes my body began to adopt the quiet of the room and I felt some peace. The pain was still there but I didn't feel so completely overwhelmed by it.


The door opened and I braced for discovery. My roommate, BLB, turned on the light and said my name. Thank goodness it was that friend, someone I felt safe revealing my weakness and pain to. I responded and she opened the door to the shower area. She gave me a hand getting up off the cool tile floor and with just a few words I followed her out, leaving most of my pain behind.

Thursday Thirteen - Vacation Edition

Thirteen things I'm thinking about as I get ready to leave on vacation tonight:
1. Where is my bathing suit? Still missing after I've looked everywhere for it.
2. Don't forget to put more business cards in my purse or carry on.
3. I know business cards seem like a weird thing to bring on vacation, but this is one of those multi-purpose trips--some vacation, some kind-of work.
4. You should see the suitcase I'm bringing--wrestling onto my bathroom scale to check whether it needed a diet last night after midnight was tons of fun.
5. I probably should have put in some kind of gift bag for my cousin's graduation gift.
6. Did I mention I'm also seeing my cousin graduate from college?
7. After the frantic preparation for this trip in the last 24 hours, I need some time at the beach!
8. Oh wait, I'll probably get some. :)
9. Have you ever had a coworker tell you that he felt sorry for you because your vacation isn't as cool as his?
10. Well, he is going kayaking in Alaska, so I guess it is okay. :)
11. Stealing the organizational prowess of my friend BLB, I've got a folder and two manilla envelopes going with me.
12. Think I'll do the busy work in one of the manilla envelopes instead of buying a trashy magazine for the plane? ;-)
13. I always bring too much stuff to fill my non-existent down time for trips.

Warm gesture

Y and I were joining our friend BLB and her family for dinner two nights before her wedding, along with the newly arrived groom and his family. Her groom came through the door of her childhood home first, followed closely by his brother and parents. He made the necessary introductions first, then hurried over to where BLB was standing with us. He reached out and handed her a box of heating pads.

"I know how these help when you're stressed out, when your shoulders get tight, so I brought them for you."

She thanked him and leaned in for a kiss. Seeing his thoughtfulness, I had even more confidence that their marriage would work.

Unspoken

The rehearsal at the church was chaotic with conflicting instructions from the wedding planner and priest for how the attendants should enter and where they should stand. To further complicate issues, our numbers were lopsided--we were short one groomsman. Behind the chaos there was a quiet whisper--the bride's brother isn't going to make it.

L was one of my college roommates. A friend of a friend to fill the extra spot in our suite my sophomore year, she had quickly become one of my best friends--someone to laugh with, to shop with, and to plan crazy stunts with. Her brother enlisted in the Navy while we were living together and I was there to share souvenirs when she came back to school from visiting him. As her wedding approached, he was still on a ship in an unspecified location.

The morning of L's wedding dawned cool and clear. After getting all dolled up, the bridesmaids were trying to pass the time at the bride's parents' house without mussing our hair or carefully applied makeup. There was a phone call as we started eating lunch and the level of tension in the house rose--L's brother was in the US. After a sleepless night spent in a helicopter, he was one quick plane ride away. Common sense said he wouldn't make it in time for his sister's ceremony, but suddenly there was a reason for seeds of optimism.

Soon our time arrived; we dressed and then helped the bride dress. The photographer arrived and we posed like supermodels. During this time, the phone kept ringing--hurried conversations indicated her brother's plane had touched down. Then there was the call trying to locate his ride and one to confirm directions. As the photographer moved on and began taking family pictures, we waited in a clump on the stairs and readied ourselves to leave for the church. There were excited murmurs and L's mother came running through the entry in her mother-of-the-bride dress and heels to clasp her son standing in the doorway. Next came his grandmother and aunt to rush to greet him. Everyone was sniffling and I had to turn away to keep from ruining my makeup.

When I turned my head back, he had stepped into the living room and was clasping hands with his sister. The light from the windows behind them was muted by sheer drapes and there was almost a halo surrounding them, her in her lace dress and veil and him in his Navy whites. Their heads leaned together, I had to blink back tears watching this unspoken moment of love between sister and brother.

Those opportunities don't come along every day

We arrived back at the hotel from the amazing rehearsal dinner about 11pm, the night before BLB's wedding. LS, my sorority sister, roommate and fellow bridesmaid, and I knew we had to be ready to leave the hotel--all bridesmaid accessories in hand--at 7am so we got ready for the next day and then hurried to bed. We had only been in bed for a few minutes when the phone rang.

"Hello," I said--who could be calling our hotel room? Even my mom didn't have that number.
"Hey--is LS there?"
"Yes, but she's sleeping."
"Oh, is this Angie?"
"Yeah."
"This is Owen, the best man. We're downstairs in the bar--come join us."
"Who's us?" I asked.
"The groomsmen. We're playing bocce ball. Come down and join us."
"Look, we're in bed and we have to be up early in the morning. BLB would kill us. We're not coming down."
"Come on--it'll be fun. I'm a fun guy."
"Here--talk to LS."
LS had sat up after I turned on the lamp and was looking curiously at me. After taking out her earplugs, she had been following my side of the conversation and wondered what plans I was turning down. LS could be fierce when she wanted to, so I knew she would tell Owen off. I handed her the phone and she mostly listened--after just a minute or so, she said, "Ok, we'll be down in a few."
"What?" I said. "We're in our pajamas and we have to be up early in the morning."
"Yeah," she replied, "but we're not in college anymore. These opportunities down just come along everyday."
A few minutes later I was downstairs--drinking beer from the groomsmen's glasses, contributing to the noise that got us kicked off the outdoor bocce ball court, dancing with the groom's uncle and warmly laughing at the groom's drunk declarations of love for his absent bride.

LS was right--those opportunities don't come along everyday.

T-17: Big girl bed

Talking to my friend BLB while I was shopping for furniture for my apartment.

A: So I don’t know what kind of bed to get. I’m thinking about a queen because I want something I can have for a while.
BLB: Boys like big beds.

14:59 and ticking...

This morning I had a sudden urge to check out my sorority homepage.

Sure enough--it was finally posted! What, you ask? A picture of me and two sorority sisters from a friend's wedding. The wedding was a super-fun reunion, thousands of miles from where we went to school--and even better because we are scattered across the country now.

A confession: I wasn't that into the whole sorority thing in college. It was one more thing that I did--I loved the idea of it, but I wasn't into the whole party scene and really wasn't that close to the other 120 women in my chapter. But now that I've become an alumna, I appreciate all of that so much more and I've become more involved than I ever was in college. This truly is membership for life.

Another confession: Every wedding should be as fun as hers. She did so much to ensure that being one of her bridesmaids was not a financial or emotional burden, but more importantly, her bridal party was awesome! Barely any of us had non-bridal party dates so this set up at least one hook-up (for which I continue to take partial credit, as I do for the wedding itself--see below), and lots of mischievous fun "decorating" the bridal suite. When the bride and groom arrived, I hope they enjoyed the toilet paper streamers, inappropriate shaving cream messages on all glass surfaces, and took some of the suggestions from our list of places to "do it." Perhaps fortunately they didn't take our suggestion to bring the list down to brunch with them the next morning with checkmarks showing locations completed.

It is amusing that my sorority and this wedding have developed this connection in my head because the bride and groom started dating after getting reacquainted with each other at one of my sorority formals where I took the bride as my "date". Now if the best man marries that bridesmaid, then I will single-handedly be responsible for marrying off both brothers. What a title!

Until then, I will enjoy bringing up that picture on my sorority homepage to enjoy my 15 minutes of fame...