Coffee Table Declarations
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Well, my faithful, reliable, trusty old friend (my car) and I had a safe and successful journey on Saturday. I have to say that I'm starting to rethink my views on transportation. It just isn't practical to only feel comfortable driving someplace yourself. If you look at a map of the country and you locate teensy little Massachusetts and then you pinpoint approximately where Boston is right on the coast and then you identify the approximate location of my friend's hometown in the top left corner next to New York state, you will think that I drove a few mere inches on Saturday when in reality, I drove over a total of about 250 miles round trip and it took just under three hours one way. Now if you take that teensy little distance into consideration and look at the places I'd like to go at some point, California perhaps to visit my brother, or North Carolina maybe, you will see just how impractical it would be for me to drive anywhere.
My car has no cd player and the tape player is broken. Most of the time this is no problem as I'll just scan through the stations. However, you would be surprised what you would be willing to listen to when you're driving between two mountains watching your radio scan through all the stations stopping only on an opera station at the lower end of the dial. At one point I turned off the radio altogether and the peace and quiet of nature nearly lulled me to sleep. I had to start singing to myself which was frustrating because I only know all the words to so many songs. Another activity to keep my motivation up was that every time I passed a sign that said "Entering (town name)" I gave a loud cheer of "woo hoo, (town name!!)" Hey, it's fun to do crazy things when you're alone in your car. Also, it resulted in me noticing town names I previously didn't know even existed. It was a geographical adventure and a soul searching drive all wrapped up into one.
The baby shower itself was pretty standard. There was food, there were gifts, there was my pregnant friend. I was greeted pleasantly by the rescuing bridesmaid and her sister. No one seemed to be giving me the evil eye. I stayed until late afternoon and ended up driving mostly in the dark on the way home which made me feel slightly paranoid but mostly just tired.
I was also sad and that surprised me. This friend and I have been close ever since college. We used to get together at least once a week for dinner or marathon chats at her kitchen table. I love her for many reasons, not the least of which are her ability to consistently make me laugh, the fact that she gives the best advice on any subject, and her positive energy that just makes being around her feel good. A realization finally hit me after getting home from her baby shower - that things will never be the same between us as they were before. They haven't been for quite a while since she got married and moved to Canada but this was the final factor that drove the point home. I am so happy that she is having a baby and I know she'll be a great mom, but I wish she wasn't so far away. Then I think, things would still be different between us even if she lived close because I would still be left behind in the same place and she would still be up ahead in another place. It feels like a very real loss in a way and one that I am just beginning to come to grips with.
On a lighter note I think that making the trip itself was a very good thing for me. If I had avoided ever driving out there again, it would've remained in my mind as this insurmountable obstacle - something that I just couldn't do. Now I can see myself making the drive again, as I'm sure I will at some point when my friend is there. In fact, I have already decided that next time I am getting a hotel room instead of making the drive in one day. Doing the drive again gave me another association for it, aside from trauma. I need to stop letting fear limit me from doing things. I go around thinking "I can't do that" when really I should be thinking "oh, get over it Katie". Instead of giving power to the fears, I should be giving power to myself. I know it's easier said than done, but I've decided that this year one of my goals is going to be to do something I'm afraid of. In fact, we should all make that our goal because it's an amazing feeling. Who's with me?
My car has no cd player and the tape player is broken. Most of the time this is no problem as I'll just scan through the stations. However, you would be surprised what you would be willing to listen to when you're driving between two mountains watching your radio scan through all the stations stopping only on an opera station at the lower end of the dial. At one point I turned off the radio altogether and the peace and quiet of nature nearly lulled me to sleep. I had to start singing to myself which was frustrating because I only know all the words to so many songs. Another activity to keep my motivation up was that every time I passed a sign that said "Entering (town name)" I gave a loud cheer of "woo hoo, (town name!!)" Hey, it's fun to do crazy things when you're alone in your car. Also, it resulted in me noticing town names I previously didn't know even existed. It was a geographical adventure and a soul searching drive all wrapped up into one.
The baby shower itself was pretty standard. There was food, there were gifts, there was my pregnant friend. I was greeted pleasantly by the rescuing bridesmaid and her sister. No one seemed to be giving me the evil eye. I stayed until late afternoon and ended up driving mostly in the dark on the way home which made me feel slightly paranoid but mostly just tired.
I was also sad and that surprised me. This friend and I have been close ever since college. We used to get together at least once a week for dinner or marathon chats at her kitchen table. I love her for many reasons, not the least of which are her ability to consistently make me laugh, the fact that she gives the best advice on any subject, and her positive energy that just makes being around her feel good. A realization finally hit me after getting home from her baby shower - that things will never be the same between us as they were before. They haven't been for quite a while since she got married and moved to Canada but this was the final factor that drove the point home. I am so happy that she is having a baby and I know she'll be a great mom, but I wish she wasn't so far away. Then I think, things would still be different between us even if she lived close because I would still be left behind in the same place and she would still be up ahead in another place. It feels like a very real loss in a way and one that I am just beginning to come to grips with.
On a lighter note I think that making the trip itself was a very good thing for me. If I had avoided ever driving out there again, it would've remained in my mind as this insurmountable obstacle - something that I just couldn't do. Now I can see myself making the drive again, as I'm sure I will at some point when my friend is there. In fact, I have already decided that next time I am getting a hotel room instead of making the drive in one day. Doing the drive again gave me another association for it, aside from trauma. I need to stop letting fear limit me from doing things. I go around thinking "I can't do that" when really I should be thinking "oh, get over it Katie". Instead of giving power to the fears, I should be giving power to myself. I know it's easier said than done, but I've decided that this year one of my goals is going to be to do something I'm afraid of. In fact, we should all make that our goal because it's an amazing feeling. Who's with me?
