Tunnel Vision is the Vision of Dreamers

A week(ish) ago, I told Rob I sometimes wish I could revisit my freshman year of high school to see what I was really like. I remember so much of it fondly, but who did I appear to everyone else? And how does that compare to today? Should I have kept more? Less? Or am I the same, but with an addition six years of back-story? We then moved on to discuss whether or not we'd want to see our lives as a movie-- even if someone else had the editing hand. We then debated whether or not we'd recommend the movie to our friends. At this point in the conversation, Sarah had joined in and said she'd want people to see it so they could understand her more. I said I would recommend it to people because it would be interesting, but I wouldn't want them to know that much about me. There's value in being the only person who has seen everything you have experienced.

(Note: Rob and I agreed that out of all the people we know, Jason Todd's life would make the best movie)

The odd part about the start of this conversation was that exact evening Miss Katie (now with a new last name... crazy married folks), one of my two seniors, IMed me. We talked for a short time, I think I ended up having to go somewhere or something of the sort. I am hoping we can meet up sometime when I'm in Ohio again, for I have not seen her in quite the while. I suppose the craziness was just that someone terribly important to me my freshman year-- someone who calmed many of my spring time worries and who inducted me into Thespian Troupe 1422-- talked to me that very same day. I didn't ask her what she thought of me then, as it would be different than me seeing it-- and I didn't think of it at the time-- but all the same, the world begins again.

Today I had a tutor for the first time ever. I've been the tutor many times, but today the roles were reversed. I am not doing so well in Historical Social Dance. It was helpful, but I still wish I could learn the entire actual dance. Perhaps I could even do one of these Galliard dance offs, but probably not :) I just need more time to let my muscles learn the movements. Oh well, at least I am establishing a large base-- despite the limited retention.

Note: I am probably going to try to pass/fail the class. It's not for my major/minor or gen. ed. requirements, so why not? It's a class for me and I don't like grades. Sometimes I wish I had gone to a college without grades altogether. They have a habit of getting me down. They distract me from learning.

Note 2: So I've been working on this entry on and off for awhile now so it will be much different than I planned when I began, but update on Historical Social Dance... I did my galliard with Renee today and it wasn't the best (by far), but we practiced for about 20 minutes straight before hand and I never got totally lost. Yay!! I might feel differently about the dance when I see the videotape on Wednesday, but right now I feel a.okay about it.

I had originally planned on writing quite a bit about 2 weekends ago (Saturday, 9/27 specifically), but now that so much time has past, the details are less vivid... the important parts of the weekend are as follows:
Friday: Having a good race on a possibly long course. The time was faster than my others, which is nice, but still not as fast as I think it really was. I stayed mentally tough for at least 4/5 of the race and finished 6th on the team (First time top 7 at Hope College ever!). The temperature was up, but there were beautiful trees to run through and-- St. Mary's is a wonderful place to run.
Saturday: woke up super early to get to Chicago to run with Anna Jo. Showered and then drove to Montrose Beach to see Megan Byrne (freshman at Aquinas, ran together in HS) and Jackie Ellis (runs for EMU now, transferred from Hope) race. It was wonderful to see them, as I haven't seen either of these terribly important people since summer. I could go on and on about their amazingness, but you probably don't want to hear allllll about my junior/senior years with Megan and what a lifeline Jackie was for me. (Note: My first roadtrip in college was to Chicago with Jackie--and a bunch of Casey's friends, who neither of us knew at the time-- in the fall of my freshman year!).

After the race Anna Jo and I did some prepping for her tri-Birthday party that evening. Then we took the "el" for dinner at the hotel where my family was staying. On the way I sat down in one of the few open seats in the car (of the train). I sat for a few moments, singing in my brain and then said hello to guy I was sitting by. Long story short- turns out he's from Midland, MI- raced at the meet I'd been at that very morning and trained with Nate, one of the boys I run with, during high school. Sings: It's a Small World After all...

Following conversation about training with Zach, was a laughter-filled fancy-pantsy dinner with my parents, Grandparents, Uncle Gordon, Betty, my sister and my sister's boyfriend, Jeff. I love my family and am consistently reminded of how important they are to me each time I see them. It's easy to let them fade into the background, as they're "always there," but my family has provided me with so much love and support in these past 20 years... I am truly blessed.

After dinner (and after the post-dinner, delicious fudge Anna Jo made, and after my mom and dad surprised Anna Jo and I with goose gourds. There's a picture of one to the right, but it's not actually mine. It's just one I found on google images. My goose gourd is on the porch, but my camera is broken. Mine is cuter than this ;) Jeff, Anna Jo and I took a taxi back to Anna Jo's and nearly everyone from my sister's program (plus their friends and significant others) came over for a wonderful evening. There was dancing and talking and delicious food. Let's be honest, my sister is the best hostess I know :) Plus art therapy grad students are in general a pretty exciting bunch :) The trip was more than worth the driving.

I might actually be traveling to Chicago again this weekend (to see the marathon and possibly a show), but I'm not positive. I haven't filled my sister (or anyone else really) in on this other crazy plan I have, but I sort of want to take a longer road trip to see a friend. I became terribly into this idea the other night when I was on the phone with him and pretended I was down the street, but realistically I don't think the trip will happen. I tried to call him just now to tell him, but he didn't pick up. It's just too expensive and long to do alone. However, if someone happened to want to go with me... (waits... impatiently, ha)

Yeah, yeah. I dream a lot.

I used to dream about people coming to visit me all the time. Well, the people didn't visit all the time, just the dreams did. My parents, my brother and Fred and Karylle have visited me. The other day some people from Edinboro were at Hope for some reason and then told Alexis about lemonjello's... it made me just wish Alexis was here... I'd even treat her (or you, if you came) to lemonjello's!

If you did want to visit, there are plenty of places to sleep around my house... I know we're both busy, but let's chat, we'll find a time to make it work :)
In the mean time, I'm sleeping. Blogs wear me out.



Final Note: The title of "today's" blog is a result of a revelation I had while shopping at Meijer on Sunday. The other realization I had was that- while I'm not sure if "love is blind," I will fully acknowledge that the want for love often causes one to put blinders on.