super (bowl) weekend

Idiotic of me to try and write tonight.  I've been going full-steam since Friday--Thursday--Wednesday...  Yeah.  For weeks.  And I have finally hit the extreme point on the homeostasis sine curve (see Figure 1) where I remember that I need to take time for myself, to clean my room, for example, do my taxes, start up another vocational project, or write some letters.  Because the great thing about writing letters is it's nice on both ends: Everybody loves getting a handwritten letter in the mail, and it's cathartic and constructive to write.  So this is on my agenda.  Among approximately 2497573523957 other things.

Figure 1: Graphic representation of the Search for Normalcy

One thing that makes the Quest for Normalcy difficult, or at least complicated, is that I do not live in a bubble.  (Believe it or not...)  There are always other people involved in my life and the way it plays out, other obligations, desires, and demands on my time and energy.  And I would have it no other way.

Here's an example which has been killing me slowly all weekend:

I came home on Friday having just received a phone call from yet another friend recently engaged.  This makes at least 3 or 4 of my inner circles now engaged or married, and I mentioned this fact nonchalantly to my mother, who responded, "Oh, honey, I'm sorry!"

Seriously?!  "Mom!  I'm not sad about it!"  In fact, I am unfathomably excited for all of them and of course I wish them all the best with a passion that beats at the borders of my heart.  Mostly it's just strange that I've reached that point in my life where, not only are my peers getting married, but they're actually kind of ready to get married.  I most certainly am not, and I'm just as pumped about the state of my own affairs as I am about theirs.  The last thing I feel is left out.

Maybe I read into it too much (it wouldn't be the first time, nor the last) but my interpretation of this hilarious exchange plays into the beautiful burden of Legacy which has been haunting me for years now.  Like Christmas dinner, senior year of college, when Grampa said pointedly, "Well, Clara hasn't brought home a boy yet.  And if she hasn't I think it must be because of Clara, because I sure met a lot of nice St. Olaf boys when we visited there."

AHEM.

The point is, Grampa and Gramma were married at 18 and still are madly in love, nearly 60 years later.  Grampi has loved and still loves to a degree that is agonizing even for me.  Mutti and Papa are definitely, disgustingly in love 25 years later.  It's a beautiful thing, but none of them really get why I'm not jumping on the bandwagon.  After all, G&G had 2 babies by the time Gramma was my age, and Mutti was newly married and doing missionary work with her new hubby.  She actually said this weekend, in a really fascinating conversation about vocation I had with my parents Saturday morning, "We didn't really have a plan, we didn't know what we were going to do with our lives.  We just knew we were going to do it together."

Puke.

I know I've written about this before, emotional detox and this awesome chance I'm getting right now to figure out what I like and what I want and who I am.  This is a completely different way to start my adult life than figuring out what we like and what we want and who we are.  Really, though, it is a lovely legacy and I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have it.  Unlike a lot of my peers, I wholeheartedly believe in everlasting love.

Speaking of everlasting love, one thing I have been throwing under the bus with my wild schedule lately is girl time.  Oh travesty!  I of all people, author of a study on girl talk, should know how crucial female community, company, and support is in a woman's life.  And I have not been getting enough of that good solid girl time.

So Thursday my Delaware wingwoman and I went to Zumba at the Y and followed our intense sweat session with drinks and apps at Applebee's, because we both love it and neither of us is ashamed of that fact.  Plus there's half-price appetizers after 9pm.  This is key.  We also planned to spend pretty much the whole weekend together.

Now, let's be clear.  I like guys, I like hanging with them -- one in particular, these days.  But there is just something refreshingly awesome about spending an entire weekend attached at the hip with an awesome girl friend.  Which is what I did this weekend.  Or with multiple girl friends, I guess.  We ate pizza and read trash mags and watched chick flicks (Friends With Benefits consistently takes the cake over No Strings Attached in the hookup movie category).  Our mixed drinks were lumpy because I bought creme de coco instead of coconut milk.  (Take heed!)  We discussed goldfish psychology at 3:00 in the morning, and polished off almost an entire bag of inspirational Dove chocolates.

And then we headed over to Craig's for the Super Bowl.  I know, since when do I watch football?!  (Since when does my family watch football?  I swear my jaw hit the floor when I came home and both my parents asked what I thought of the Giants' win.  ...Whaaaat?)

I admit I spent most of the time giggling in a sleep-deprived delirium, and heading to the kitchen when the game came on to grab more snacks or another beer.  Lots of snapping going on, and "that's what she said."  I had even watched most of the commercials online at work over the last 2 weeks, since they have all been trending videos lately.  But I did watch the halftime show and the fourth quarter, and I was actually really into the end of the game.  It helped that Kristy is a die-hard Giants fan, but that wasn't a hard wagon for me to jump on seeing as at least part of my heart is and will forever live in New York.  I even said "Blockbuster" in my Amsterdam voice this weekend, without thinking about it.

Incidentally, Blockbuster has apparently copycatted Redbox with Blockbuster Express kiosks, or perhaps kiosk, since I have only ever seen one: tucked on the edge of the Food Lion in Claymont.  I am also dead over the Food Lion and the medieval logo: 

I've had a fantastic weekend and tomorrow I'm taking the evening to myself to check some things off my list and do my own thang.  Or, you know, catch up on the sleep I missed out on this weekend and last week and the weekend before...  I'm also pumped for a lunch date with my dad this week, and visiting Queens next weekend to spend some time with my girls up there.  It's been too long, and we all know my last (barely overnight) excursion up there was a flaming success.  In a more vague sense, I've decided to start more actively looking for a community of writers in the Wilmington area, or figure out how to do some coaching.

Right now, though, I'm about to pass right out.  True to form, I couldn't be more pumped about it.