Chronicles and Thoughts from Idaho

I am in love with life here and it is too good to keep to myself.  For all of you who did not visit when I lived here, you missed out on a treasure.  This town is hysterical magic.

I took my last exam Tuesday evening and caught the earliest flight Wednesday morning.  My aunt picked me up and drove me to my cousins' school where I surprised the life out of them.  We talked with fast words and big smiles for a few hours and then a friend picked me up to meet the others for dinner.  There I got an offer from my very pregnant friend to move into their basement, Tasha be that creepy person who lives downstairs and takes care of our baby.  It sounded good for a few minutes and then I remembered my class schedule and school promises.

We took off for the theater, the oldest one in town that looks like a mini opera house and makes you feel like you're back in the days of lovely gloves and swishing dresses.  That is, if you don't look closely.  Everything is better from a distance, you have to be careful when you get up close.  And there we watched my friend's show that was a clapping, whistling success. Her face when she finally spotted me made me smile hard.

We all went out afterward and celebrated with garlic fries and beers and it felt so good to just sit there, listening to everyone's lives and to really laugh hard, from the middle.  The next day I wrote my last term paper, I grounded myself to the basement until I finished that evening and my sweet uncle made me the strongest celebration margarita that a glass has ever held.  The cousins and I curled up on the couch and watched The Emperors New Groove until past their bedtime and we all went to sleep, warm and happy and young.

Friday I woke up and lay in bed for an hour, curled under the covers and reveling in the emptiness of my thoughts.  The absence of school deadlines and research possibilities left room for the humanity that I had been pushing aside for so long, pushing aside in order to make room for books and theories and terminology.  And so I lay there thinking of wonderful silly things that all of a sudden felt very, very important.  Book titles and lists of personal care products that I had run out of without noticing and that Christmas Letter I need to write.

I spent the day frivolously, running errands for my aunt and visiting the make up aisle.  I even made a visit to the library where I read a book at my favorite table by the window.  That night I made dinner with a friend and relearned girly talk and giggling.  She talked me into a party the following evening that required an ugly sweater and a mustache.  I agreed to the sweater, left the mustache for her and invited a few others.  This is when I began to realize that there are some things I can not blame on school.  Such as my absolute fear of interaction when we go out.  We grabbed a large booth and some food and they took turns dancing in their costumes while I sat there hiding behind my bangs, playing scrabble on my phone and thinking about the book on the side of my bed.  

I spent much of Sunday in the hot tub and went through a large load of towels and two suits.  My skin was so dry afterward I used the entire bottle of lotion I had purchased on Friday and looked like some sort of red human prune.  This morning I watched Tom and Jerry for an hour before I decided that I should switch to a channel that didn't have constant commercials of toys and child stars.  But those channels were so boring that I shut it off and watched out the glass doors instead. 

My friends ended their run and I met them for coffee at our favorite place to go.  I declared that I was taking a day, that I needed a little silence and they agreed with me.  And so I read another book in the library, watched Holiday Inn, and tromped around the house in my pajamas just for the sake of tromping.  At one point I got stomach growling hungry and drove into town for take out. 

It was all going wonderfully until I started thinking about the library trips and the scrabble playing and cartoon watching and the way I wear my hair up high when I am alone.  And then I started thinking about this year that is almost over and the new one that is going to begin.  Caleb asked me where my cats were when he saw me playing scrabble and I wrinkled my nose at him, but what scares me is that the path I am on seems destined to contain cats at some point.  And they make me sneeze.

The problem is, I do not know how to be anything different.  I do not dance, it is awful when I do, and large crowds up people make me want to slide under the table and stay there.  Large crowds of people scare me.  It doesn't even take a large crowd, small crowds scare me too.  And there is something charming about old cartoons and old films and old things in general.  I do not like headphones with ear buds or books on a screen.  I do not like them Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham.  I grew out of myself a lot here, in this safely wild small town, but what I am realizing is that I stopped growing when I moved.  I sank into myself a little bit and I am terribly afraid of sinking.

But I am going back to classes and coffee and my book bag.  I do not know how to balance with that giant book bag.  I do not know how to not feel guilty about sleeping, how to eat three meals.  I reread my favorite parts of the book that I have been reading for years and I vowed to be better at it all but it felt a little empty because I do not know how.  I am the type of girl who would rather stay in than go out, who hates 3D anything, who gets marriage offers instead of dates.  I am a Monday evening instead of Saturday night, a cup of coffee, a book review, a pep talk, the best friend, bridesmaid, mentor.  I said all of this to Him, told Him that I have become the rut I am stuck in.

But then He gave me a thought.  Tasha, you are who I made you to be and I delight in you.  So keep growing child, but do not erase yourself.  Do not blend and disappear.  I have a use for everyone, even the cat ladies.  And silly girl, I love you, you do not need to worry about cats.