Ok, I've been here almost 20 days now.
1. All of the clothes are put away! In drawers that I assembled myself! Or in the closet.
2. The suitcases are not lying open on the floor, instead they've been filled up with extra sheets, smaller suitcases and extra tv/internet/any type of cable/plug that I've amassed over the past 6 years, and are PUT AWAY.
3. All of my receipts, tax forms, papers, papers papers- from the summer, contracts from last year and this year, etc...are in the correct filing drawer.
You really know you're settled when you unpack the photo albums and scrapbooks and find a place for them in your room.
Last year they sat in one of my bookshelves. Unfortunately for that shelf, it didn't make it over here, and now my new shelves are too not deep to hold the massive scrapbooks, so I've found a new home for them on top of a lovely tapestry-covered staples box (which is holding scores I won't use this year).
But before I placed them in their final resting spot for the moment, I had to take a look at the books.
I think I took to scrapbooking (not seriously, or dorkily) somewhere in my Senior year of highschool, when my mom pulled out all of our vacation pictures from a big box and asked me to sort them and put them in albums so she could send them to our cousins and grandparents- who had been there with us.
I took SO much time picking out the right color border for each shot! I'd thumb through magazines for appropriate letters/pictures to cut out, I'd add a little tag line under most pictures describing what was going on, who was in the pic, or where we were.
Ok, as I said- that was highschool. I had a bit more time on my hands, what with school from 8am-12pm, the special college classes I was enrolled in ONCE a week in the afternoons, and pretty much nothing to worry about after I was accepted to college.
Then I began putting my photos together in albums. No borders this time, but still those taglines and names of people (thank goodness--because now I'd have no idea who at least 1/3 of them are), and what we were doing.
So there is- Bat Mitzvah, surprise 16th bday party, junior prom, senior prom, trip to Italy, trip to France, senior post-prom trip to the Shore, (yes, NJ!), so many things that I don't ever, ever think about. Of course, looking through I still cringe at the fact that I still have AND wear some of those dresses- especially my Junior prom one! It's come in handy MORE than once!
I wonder where that watch went, or whatever happened to a certain skirt, I remember hanging out with people that I feel like I haven't talked to since I graduated, and how much fun I had, what good friends, how we said we'd always be in touch...etc. etc.
Next weekend my brother flies out to chicago to meet 4 of his guy friends from College- they started getting together ever year for at least one weekend and hanging out, catching up. It's a really nice idea. I'm actually planning the same this November with my two best friends from highschool. But what about all of the other ones? The best friend from Model U.N./Student Govt. who said we'd always stay in touch and one day run our own NGO together? Well, we didn't talk through college that much. We reconnected through friendster, actually, and now at least I know what she's studying for her Masters, and where.
The thing is, if we all got together in a big room for some sort of party or get-together (that is NOT a reunion), I'm sure things would be just as normal as they were Junior year, when we were hanging out in the student govt. office instead of going to Calculus class (with the excuse that we had a voice lesson..yes, in my highschool your choir director could schedule you for rehearsal during any period of school, so we pretty much took advantage of that one majorly...ie, no gym senior year!). I know we'd reconnect, remember, catch up, rerun the past 4-6 years of not being in highschool, but being in college, grad school, work, etc.
It would be nice, but who instigates those kinds of things, when none of us nor our parents even live where we went to highschool? I guess just pick any city and send out a mass email saying this is the weekend I want to get together with as many people as possible? Oh, and btw- if you live in said city, do you want to host the party?
I feel the same thing for undergrad friends. It's just so easy to lose touch these days with "business" of daily life. Meaning- yes, I have time to call people, but when I look through the phonebook on my cellphone, how RANDOM would it be for me to call up these people who I haven't talked to in OVER two years possibly? I could just send the impersonal personal email, I know. But they could too, right?
The Jewish new year is coming up- a time to reevaluate and to reconnect. Perhaps a good time for that phone call or email after all this time.
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