Paper Napkin

I don't have a specific train of thought tonight. Just some random, beautiful, life things I wanted to share with you. I jotted some of them down on a paper napkin I found in my car.

I went out to the country yesterday. So far out in the country you could sit on your front porch completely naked, and not only would no one care, no one could see you. It was cool on top of the hill; we sat in rocking chairs, held the three month old baby Charlotte, and ate BBQ pork chops. We rode ATV's across the farm; my biceps are sore today from holding on. We rode down a dry creek bed and drove through Queen Anne's Lace (my legs are eaten up with bug bites from this). I secretly compared Kentucky's hills to Colorado's mountains and chided myself for doing so; I just couldn't quite grasp the majesty of Harrison County. But I felt the beauty. The little bit of simplicity was precious... I felt like the Waltons. I rocked in a two-seater chair with Eric as he held Charlotte. He grinned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "I could just die right now," he whispered. It was that peaceful.

I went to Winchester on Friday to a new coffee shop downtown. I am skeptical. Coffee has never done too well in Clark County... you kind of have to be a bank or a convenience store to flourish there. (That was mean. I know.) Expressions was actually a very sweet little shop. They were lacking white noise, which made me a highly uncomfortable. But eventually the band we had come to see began to play. Once again I found myself seeing people from my past, getting myself reaquainted with a past I thought I had forgotten all about. I hadn't realized how much I had detached myself from those memories. I also had never really realized how young I was when it was all over.

I went to church by myself this morning and tonight. I was fine this morning. I sat beside two pretty, dressed-up ladies and in front of a sweet, old couple. Jon talked about temptation and evil. The one thing I came away with was a lesson that can be learned in AA. Heh. "HALT". You know what I'm talking about; I bet you're chuckling right now. What is the lesson? The acronymn? Don't trust your judgment when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Hmph. No kidding.

I went back to church tonight for the same sermon preached by a different preacher. Brad's funny. Kind of a spastic (in the best sense of the word) teaching style; he makes me laugh every time. Going to 6:08 tonight, I was a little more nervous. I knew that the people I would be surrounded by would be my age. I knew that I might see people I knew (I was right). I knew I would probably have to leave early to make it to dinner on time. I wondered why I had decided to go to church again. I had met my quota for the day, right? Once was surely enough. But right before the service started I looked up and saw someone. His name is Chris. We took psychology together last semester. I think he cheated off my tests once or twice. He sold prescription drugs in the parking lot at school, and has no sense of personal space. Chris was in church. That was enough to make me smile and want to cry and understand why God had me sitting by myself... again. Just to see Chris inside those walls made it all make sense.

Donna said something while I was in Colorado that made me think. At some point it gets to where you're not looking for the right person, as much as you are just trying to be the right person. So I wonder tonight, when I'm lonely and trying my hardest to be my best, what it is I'm doing wrong? I'm here, I want to announce. Trying pretty daggon hard to be a good woman. Where are you? On nights like tonight, I wonder these things.

One of my best friends is coming home tomorrow. I am nervous. Know why? For a good part of our childhood/teenage years we grew up in the same town. We worked for the same cafe for a good six months, and my little sister danced with her. We were nice to each other, we talked. But we weren't good friends. Until she decided to move out to Houston. And I got jealous. Crazy, green-eyed jealous. We were seventeen and she was moving and going out to have adventures and I was stuck here. In Kentucky. So I prayed about it, knowing I was so completely out of line, and wrote her a letter. I think I gave her coffee; a peace offering. That was two years ago. After her one year in Houston, after my big break up, my first semester in college, Liza came home for a summer, We went bowling. I wrote a poem for her. Then she moved to Oslo, Norway. She has been there since last August. She comes home tomorrow... and after countless letters, emails, snowglobes, and a few phone calls, I count her as one of the best people in my life. We just have to learn how to be best friends in person.

Classes start back in a week. That knot in my stomach is already starting to form. Biology might kill me this semester. But the real challenge has been finding school supplies. Who knew that the school supplies aisle could be such hell? I almost get run over every time I try to buy a folder.

These are just jotted down paper napkin thoughts. Funny, every time I think about paper napkins I think about the year I was eleven. I think I still have that note somewhere... the paper napkin Peyton used to "ask me out". Haha. He's about to turn twenty-one, has his tongue pierced, and I saw him at Triangle Park the other night smoking menthols with his new girlfriend.

Funny how things change.