My closest friend in Provo left to Texas yesterday. Hopefully, he'll be back sometime next year, but that knowledge didn't dull the pain and loss I felt last week. I've got a confession to make: I don't become close friends with people because I hate goodbyes. It's much easier to let go of people you don't know very well.
But I've discovered, from my friendship with Eric, that it is worth it to become close enough to your friends that you love them. If you don't get close to people, you don't grow. And I grew more in my five months of knowing Eric than I had in the six months before I knew him.
And another thing I've discovered from this parting is that when one person leaves, another person comes into your life to help you. That person, for me, was Nathan.
Left: Kristin Right: Nathan
Nathan didn't take Eric's place. He isn't trying to. And I'm not trying to replace Eric. Eric is irreplaceable. But Nathan is teaching me things that Eric couldn't. Nathan's a great guy, and I look forward to a new friendship. I'm still learning to not hold back, but I'm moving forward every day, which is what's important. Nathan won't let me move backward, either.
So, here's to new beginnings, growing, and moving forward. May the next five months be as fruitful as the last five.
I realize that I haven't posted an actual post about me for awhile now, mostly just pictures and music videos. So, I thought I'd post about Austin Blues Party. Here goes nothing!
The Car Ride
This was actually taken on the ride back, but I figure I can sum up both car rides at the beginning. The drive is approximately 22 hours long. We managed the drive down to Pflugerville (yes it is a real place. Look it up. Pflugerville, between a rock and a weird place, as natives say [which includes Eric]) in 21 hours, and the drive back up to Utah in 24. We played music the entire time. So, if you think about it, with three days worth of dancing and two days worth of driving, we listened to approximately five days straight of music.
I think the picture above was taken somewhere around 2 AM. We did the drive all in one go. And at 2 AM, if you're the driver, dancing to the music with your finger seems a fantastic way to stay entertained.
On the way down, I drove for the first twelve hours. Straight. So, I drove long enough to see the sunset and the sunrise. When we hit Albuquerque, I put in one of my mix CDs that started with a Bob Marley song. And at this point, some of the guys were awake again (I should mention, I was the only girl in this car. There was me, Richard, Eric, and Aldo). As we were passing through, there were cool rocks that weren't actually rocks. They were like these light thingies that changed color. Yes, they were actually there. But it was fun, because Eric looks at them and says, "Hey, we start listening to Bob Marley and the world gets colorful!"
And Holy Goodness, there's nothing like a sunrise in Texas. I may never live in Texas or like everything about it, but the sunrise was gorgeous. Of course, since I was driving, I didn't get a picture, but if I can draw your attention to the sunrise in The Lion King, that's what it looked like. A huge sun, not impeded by the mountains, changing the sky to pink, red, purple, and orange as it rose like a big ball of fire. Yeah, amazing.
Eric was a sweetheart both on the way there and on the way back. He let me fall asleep curled up next to him on the backseat even though I'm certain it was uncomfortable for him and he didn't get to sleep because I took up all the room to get comfy.
In Austin
At the Capitol. From left to right: me, Eric, Aldo, Richard.
We had a whole day to spend before Blues Party started, so we had Eric show us some of the stuff going on in Austin. We went to the capitol building, which is the largest in the United States. Go figure. Go big or go home in Texas.
Speaking of go big or go home, Richard had a super monster burrito at Freebirds, and managed to eat it all. Well, all but an inch of it.
And we went into some awesome little shops, including a hat shop. The boys had more options in the store than I did, but it was fun to take pictures.
In the evening we went to Congress Avenue Bridge and watched 1.5 million bats fly out from under the bridge. It was really cool to see. I couldn't get any good pictures.
Austin Blues Party
The last night of ABP. We couldn't find Richard anywhere, but we got a picture anyway.
That night we went dancing. And then the next day we went dancing, and then that night, and the next day, and the next night. We started at 10ish Friday night, ended at 4 AM, got up and went to classes from 11 AM to 5ish, and then started dancing at 8 and went to 4 AM, and then started at 1 PM Sunday and went to 3 AM Monday morning. So, a lot of dancing. A lot of fun. Eric won the beginner Jack and Jill with our friend Kera. So, he gets to go to Austin Blues Party for free next year.
One funny thing that happened on Sunday--we were in a class where Heidi and Dexter were teaching how to let your follow play and add input to the dance. She says, "And maybe I do this, and that inspires him."
A girl in the class says, "Oh, is that what they're calling it now?"
So, it is a running joke that we get "inspired" by dance moves.
Richard gave a great line that night, too. He said, "Blues dance is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire."
We laughed so hard. Priceless.
You probably had to be there for everything to be funny or make sense. Or at least be a blues dancer.
I never thought I would ever miss Provo, so I was rather surprised at how badly I miss it now. I realized why. I've never felt this welcome in a group, ever, and so leaving it, even for a couple of weeks, is really rather painful.
People:
Eric
Hailey
Tia
James
Griffin
Kelsey
Cody
Victoria
Events:
The campfire and Blues dancing (The Pagan Pit, we call it) at Eric's every Monday night.
West Coast Swing at South Town Swing every Tuesday.
Sammy's runs.
The occasional Denny's run.
Getting ready for Blues at Hailey's and Tia's house.
Blues dancing at Blue Tango every Thursday night.
Random weekly outings with Eric.
Hugs.
Random phone calls and texts from Eric.
Girls nights with Tia and Hailey.
Late nights talking with roomies.
Dinners with Cody and Kelsey.
Teasing, and being teased by, Cody.
The short, but great talks with Griffin.
I'm going to make sure I spend all the time I can with these guys when I get back in town. And boy, am I going to appreciate every moment.
Yeah, I know it's tacky, but I do like this song and the only decent version I could find was in the form of a lyric video. And I'm posting it anyway. Sometimes it happens. Eric and I danced to it the other week, and I thought it was a good song, albeit not a good song to west coast to. It's more of a night club two step type of song. I feel like it's been a long time since I posted anything like this on here, and it is weird for me that it is Katy Perry because I generally don't like her music all that much.
But this song was really what I was feeling last night and tonight, and so I felt it was something I needed to share to help get things off my chest. Yet another tacky, generally overused and overrated way of doing that, but still, since when have I been known not to do something simply because it is tacky? After being brutally reminded of exactly where my place in life is, I feel I'm allowed a little tacky.
Misreading signs sucks, and not having anyone to fall back on to help you through it isn't cool either. Still, picking myself up, moving onwards and upwards. There's only so far I can let myself fall. But I'll probably be up all night again tonight. Don't expect too much outgoing-happiness energy on my part for the next couple weeks or so.
"So I was in the shower, naked, wet, and going to Russia . . ."
"I started whistling the Tetris theme in the shower, and the Ukrainian guy across the way starts whistling it in perfect harmony with me."
"A flaming lemur is always better than a regular lemur, whether the flaming lemur is gay or actually on fire."
"What if we stood in grocery stores and the food chose who got to eat it?"
"You'd feel sorry for the guy that the hot dogs picked time and time again."
"Within six hours of my knowing him, the waitresses at Denny's thought we were together. They put our tabs together and whatnot."
"Oh yeah! I heard that through the grapevine."
"How did I get this hat?"
"It's the traveling hat."
"You really don't know how to skateboard, do you?"
"We're working with the negative space."
"Turn the music up!"
"We can't. The cops have already come and told us to turn it down."
"But we weren't even that loud to begin with!"
"Apparently there have been several complaints."
"Smoke follows beauty."
"Well that's a long leap when you look at this."
I don't know. Maybe you just had to be there for all this to be funny.
Great night at my first bonfire/blues/west coast night. Thanks Kimber, for having a birthday. And thanks Eric, for putting it all together. I can think of no better way to spend a Monday night.
