Destination Unknown

It suddenly hit me tonight...I don't even know where all of this comes from - well maybe I do a little. In a couple weeks one of my friends from the Coast is coming to visit me. She's pretty much never been here...that's kind of a lie - she has been here before but it was only about 2 years after we were at Trinity Western together and I was a bit of scatter brain then...

And I think about what my head space has been like these last few days...strike that...weeks - and I begin to wonder if I'm more or less scattered brained then...or now.

I was just hit with a mass amount of nostalgia...does nostalgia have to be good memories? Or is it a mix? Can it be a mix...because there is definitely a mix here.

Trinity Western University (where Amanda, my friend from the Coast) is where met. We were roommates - she was a second year. And we never, NEVER would have been friends had we crossed paths elsewhere. I think God had other plans.

TWU was the place I learned how to play rugby. It's how it all began. Dave Swan, Gillian King, Lisa Edwardson, Kendra Spence (now Lake), Mandy Moon, Nathan Laity, Kyle Jespersen, Michelle Bartleman, and Sid Kettle (so many more...but I don't think I will). Oh Sid Kettle. I first "serious" boyfriend - apparently the boy that all the girls wanted - and I didn't find this out until after we broke up...all the girls wanted him and couldn't figure out what was so special about me. I laugh at that now - how many times have I wondered the same about someone else.

He had a broken leg...I had a dislocated shoulder. It was a pair made in heaven (or a hospital). We spent a lot of time getting to know each other on the sidelines of our practices and games getting to know each other. We dated for 7 months (and yes - do the math...I was part of freshman frenzy). He drove a mint-condition 1967 butter yellow camaro. Trust me ladies - it's tough to be rational about a relationship when the car is that sweet.

Amanda and I really found a groove in our friendship. Maybe it was that we're different enough to really get along well or what. She's been a very consistent person in my life. But she hasn't been back to Alberta since 2002 and it was the dead of winter. AND that was the Fall-Christmas-Hell time of my life. September-December 2002. One of the worst times of my life simply because it was compounded on top of a spring of it's own nasty flavour. 2002 was a year where I lost nearly all of myself. At the beginning of the year it was about personal and family revelations which, in hindsight only connected my mother and I on a deeper level but it was definitely a journey. I remember a lot of afternoons that Spring spent on CindySue D's steps rehashing issues over my parents. I quit university that summer and then 5 days before it started again - I was scrambling to find a place to live because I had decided not to give up. Then came the fact that I would not be playing rugby...so I practiced with them...but never played. And then came the other shoe. I don't want to really talk about the other shoe. But it was delivered to me personally and it took me a very, very long time to shake myself loose of that shoe. Some shoes, when delivered by the "right" person stay with you forever.

Enough with the shoe metaphors.

Bottom line...I want/need a roadtrip. The plans were to drive to the Coast and see my new nephew and friends (Amanda included) but plans like that need money...and money didn't call my number so the solo roadtrip got cancelled. But leave it to Amanda to make half the trip come true. She's flying here in about 10 days and we're going to adventure around Alberta and hopefully have some good ol' fashioned fun between two ex-TWU roommates.

Here's to the adventures to come!

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