Wedding Wack and Pulling Splinters: a Few of Life's Simple Joys.

My cousin Tiffany got married on Friday. It was strange. I don't really know my family very well because we moved to NC when I was 5 or 6, but I feel like when cousins start to get married, you know that things are changing, because family is fairly consistent, even from a distance. Last year, my cousin on my other side of the family, Bonnie, got married. The funny thing about growing up is that it never really ends. I can imagine myself, ninety years old, in a rocking chair (which is really a must have for any age), still growing up. My friends Andrew and Katherine are getting married tomorrow. I have class and cannot go. But I've got the wedding wack anyways. You might not call it the wedding wack, but you've got to know what I'm talking about. It's that wack that makes you cry when Dean breaks up with Rory and she finally breaks down and cries. Because you remember what it feels like, even though the last time you were broken up with was when you were 19. It's the wack that makes you have fat days, where you feel like a whale even though the shirt you're wearing looked fine a week ago. Perhaps this makes no sense. Sometimes when I go to weddings, I just get a huge rush of emotion. The emotions of happiness, and excitement because two people are being joined together because they can better serve the kingdom that way and because they are committing to love each other no matter what, and that is so beautiful. Fear and soberness because weddings are serious. I went through stages. The "gosh, will-this-ceremony-ever-end-so-I-can-just-eat-cake" stage. The "weddings-are-so-cute, I-loved-her-dress" stage. And now I'm in the "this-is-seriously-serious-stuff" stage, "committing-to-someone-for-the-rest-of-your-life-is-hard-core" stage. (Maybe I'll feel differently when I am ready to get married/ have someone I want to marry)I get kinda sad and reminiscent too. It's inescapable, when you get married, things won't be the same because they can't be. Anyways, wedding wack is kind of an inexorable, deep and unexplainable sense of loss. It passes after a few days.

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Last night Lindsay came with a splinter into the house where Laura Jo, Nick, Matt, Ann, Eric, Kelsey and I were hanging out. I got a needle and some tweezers and began to carefully work it out. For some reason, splinter pulling is very nostalgic to me. That just made me laugh, but I'm serious. Splinters remind me of my Mom's parents who live in California (with just about the rest of my family.) Grandpa and Grandma lived in this sweetest ranch house with the coolest closet ever. You could walk from one side of the room to the other through it. This house makes me think of Asian things. It was decorated with Asian things. Fans and vases, and plants, and these crazy huge glass balls used for fishing that had washed ashore. When we'd walk into the kitchen, The backyard was huge. There was a big ditch and horses lived on the other side and I used to get carrots and go feed them. Their big, soft lips would brush my perfectly flat hand. (One time when I was ridding, all the adults were looking at the sunset and not at me, and I slipped right off. I was pretty resilient, I got right back on. Grandma had this neighbor, who would let me ride her horses, who had all sorts of other animals too, including pigs that she would let into her house, which at the time, seemed awesome. Not so much now. Her name was Sue and I called her Aunt Sue because I was confused. I had a real Aunt Sue, but she was my Great Aunt and I don't think I'd ever met her, I'd just heard about her, so in 6 year old logic, this woman was my aunt.) I used to get thorns in my socks from going across the ditch. When I got older, I realized that the ditch was actually kinda small, but when I was little, it seemed like a land form to be overcome and explored. There were paths in the ditch from my grandparent's dog who would create them by repetitive travel. One time at my grandparent's, I caught a mouse. The cat was trying to kill it, so I picked it up and brought it inside to show Mom and Grandma. They freaked out. Mom told me I was going to get a disease. Oh yeah...splinters. Grandpa and Grandma had a big, huge, wooden deck. And when I played out there sometimes I would get killer splinters and Grandma or Mom would have to take them out for me. It could be quite the ordeal cause those babies can get in there. I just started thinking about all of this because I was sitting there working on little Lindsay's hand. I think my favorite thing was her trying to keep talking to be distracted.




Current time: 4:04, nap time
Currently listening to: Brooke Waggoner
Currently drinking: Coffee
Word of the day: Trajectory: a chosen path