Thursday night, I'm a gushy mess. Emotionally drained. So I am packing my house, and not planning to sleep, as a way to work through the weepiness. All goes well until, I guess, about 4AM, when I apparently fell asleep on my floor. On my floor. My phone is set to a daily alarm at 7 and 7:15 AM, but that means nothing, because I don't wake up until 12:30, most of my room still unpacked and even unsorted. I am supposed to be on a bus leaving ND at 2:10.
That's when the garbage bags came out. There were two kinds of garbage bags: those for my stuff, and those for actual garbage. Hopefully I didn't mix them up, because there were really no external marks to differentiate one kind from the other. Anyway, my darling friend, Carolyn, to whom I now owe my soul and obscene amounts of jewelry, came over to drive me to the bus stop, and was an amazing help and calming influence. We were able to get all the "keep" stuff shoved into my car, the "lose" stuff to the dumpster, my keys returned and a movie on its way back to Blockbuster. She's awesome.
So, onto the bus, the airplane, and touchdown in Anchorage at midnight Thursday night. The cool thing about having a father who's in charge of building maintenance at the airport is that he's able to meet you at the gate. :) So we got my stuff and headed home where, oddly enough, my mother was not waiting. She was at the Gruening Middle School track doing the Relay for Life, walking for her principal, who is recovering from breast cancer; a former student who died of cancer; and a dear friend whom she is watching fight not only the disease but the pain of the fight. Elaine is...Elaine, still, even when she can't stand, and so I walked for a couple of hours for her, and for KS's mom and the fight that she won.
Awesome cause, but it meant that I didn't get to bed until about 3, and then couldn't sleep until 5, but couldn't sleep past 10.
So yesterday, chilling with the family, mass, yadda yadda yadda. 10PM rolls around and I go out with a friend and his girlfriend and some other acquaintances for karaoke at the VFW hall. We're the only people under 30 there. It's special. I ended up singing a song in one of those strange octaves that I can't really sing in its own but can't quite lift up an octave. Halfway through I figured, screw it, and popped it up, which by the grace of God I was able to pull off...can't say how much of a service it did to the song, but the patrons seemed to enjoy it.
Karaoke was supposed to last for an hour, max, but I got home at 1AM. Set the phone to wake me up at 9:45 so I could see Nicholas sing the Irish National Anthem for President Mary MacAleese of Ireland at the University of Notre Dame's 161st Commencement Exercises. Actually woke up at 10:10 (2:10 ND Time) having, I think, just missed it. My phone was in my hand under my cheek, and I almost threw it against the wall.
The rest of graduation was pretty cool; President MacAleese's address was beautifully done, and the valedictory address was nice. I also got to see all the degrees conferred, and the Class of 2006's first singing of the Alma Mater as alumns. But I wish I could have seen Nicholas on stage. Damn.
Well, I need to go vacuum, because my brother's housemate is coming over for dinner tonight. I really kind of love being at home. It's weird though...every time I come home for vacation since graduation, it feels a little more...less...my house, which is as it should be. The weird part is that, now that I no longer go back to Pangborn, and due to the short termness of my current educational goals, I don't have that comforting place that is my house. I'm being pulled between two places, and until I can decide where I wish to settle, I will be caught in the vacuum. It's a little unsettling.
Song of the day's mood: "For Good" from Wicked...again.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better,
and because I knew you
I have been changed for good.
Congratulations, again, to the Class of 2006. Welcome to the (Alumni) Club.
1 comment:
Thanks for thinking of my family, KH...I hope you enjoy your time in Alaska. ~KS
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