Boys, epiphanies, and smores!

November 01, 2004

November! NANOWRIMO!! YAYY!!!

So, October is over and nothing huge happens like it always seems to, which is weird and a little unsettling. However, a lot of little things happened to make me see how far I've come from the weird, socially inept drama queen victim I was 2 years ago, and that is always a good thing, yes sir. More contemplative bullshit about that later in the entry! YAY!

I really want to get started on Nano RIGHT THIS SECOND, but I kinda made a vow to myself that I wouldn't Nano at work. It's just too easy. If I did it at work I'd probably be finished in like.. a week. But that's not good, and I need to take the time at work to find another job and you know.. work and stuff. So, I will have to wait until after work, and somehow manage to squish it in at night along with working out and watching TV. This should be interesting, because I've never had a full time job during Nano. We'll see.. I have confidence that I will finish this, because I sat down and wrote out a whole plan for the story. It's going to be dirty and wrong, but it will be good, I can assure you of that.

Anyway, the retreat! I have lots of fun time pictures and stories to share!

On Friday, I left work early to clean out my car because I, for some reason, volunteered to take some of my small group out to Lake Texoma. I did a really awesome job of cleaning it out, but when I got to church I was told that the two married couples were riding together, which left me with the other people in our group. Which just happened to be two VERY CUTE boys who are 23 and 24, respectively. And um, guess what? I'm the only single girl in our group. *cough*

Anyway, I rode up there with the two VERY CUTE boys in Boy #1's Volvo. I was glad I didn't have to drive. We made small talk for the 2 hour drive up there, but eventually I was distracted by this huge storm cloud to the right of us. It was just this big cloud, and every couple of seconds there would be this giant lightning bolt. I was totally fascinated by it. I'm not really sure why, but in the past couple of months I've really been all about the nature. Nature Girl, if you will.

Before we got there, we were all kinda expecting a campish kind of place, with like bunk beds or cots in a big room that we'd all have to share. Fortunately, we were wrong! We totally had hotel-like accomodations, complete with two queen sized beds in each room, and us single people didn't even have to share. Here's what the rooms looked like:

However, there was one key item missing:

NO TV'S! What were we going to do with ourselves?!

Anyway, after we got all settled in, we had our first little bible study/session of the retreat. It was pretty interesting.. the main topic of discussion for the weekend was The Holy Spirit, so that was good times. At the end, we watched a little video on Team Hoyt. Now, I had heard about these guys before, but to really see it up there on the screen seriously almost made me sob. You should check out their story.. it's just an amazing feat of human dignity. Or you know.. stuff.

After a small group meeting and after determining that I wasn't going to miss out on anything, I went back to my room, put my headphones on, and just had a really nice and peaceful 2 hours of reading and writing. I highly suggest doing that every now and then.. turn off the TV, sit down and get back to the basics. It was very blissful, and I enjoyed it muchly.

Saturday was spent having more Holy Spirit discussion and more small group time. Now, I don't know if any of you know this about me, but I doodle. I doodle big time. Here is an example of my doodle fun:

(That says "Self Control", not "elf control", by the way!)

Boy #1 was sitting next to me and when we were in our small group he said the he couldn't stop watching what I was drawing! I like captivating people like that.

On Saturday night it was time for games! Woooo! Our small group played Guestures, which I am surpisingly awesome at. At one point, the leader guy asked us to pick the scariest person in our group. I volunteered myself because I had no idea what I was going to have to participate in. What happened was a whole putting on scary make-up situation, and then we had to act out a scene from the bible. Here is what I looked like after the make-up situation: (along with Boy #1 making a goofy face that cracked everyone's shit up for like, 5 minutes)

Uh huh.

So anyway, to make the rest of the long story short, I had an awesome time this weekend. I had some good bible time, and I definitely had some good Nano planning time. Lake Texoma is really quite pretty. See the bottom of this entry for more beautiful pictures. But for now: more contemplative fun!

When I was telling my mom about my adventures this weekend, one thing occured to me that made me very, very happy. In the past, I would have had trouble in situations like this because I really had a hard time relating to people because I don't know.. I guess I thought I was better than them. I used to think that since I had met my "soulmate" so early in life, and since I spent most of my time with them.. I was ahead of most people. I had it made. I don't know exactly why I put myself on a pedastal like this, but you know what? The last two years have knocked me on my ass and showed me that I'm certainly not better than ANYONE. And man alive, I'm so glad I'm on my ass, because it's such a good feeling to know that I've grown so much.

I mean.. I know I'm tooting my own horn (kinky!) here about this kind of thing lately, but it just makes me so happy. I had NO problem talking to ANYONE at this retreat, and I seriously didn't feel a whole lot of social retardation rear its ugly head. Come to think of it, I'm really not getting too many "What the fuck is wrong with you?" looks these days, and that makes me SO.HAPPY. Progress! I'm making it! I'm FINALLY moving on from the years I wasted in college, living in my weird little dream world where I was the star.

We were having an intense discussion on Saturday night about life in general, and I told them about the whole heartbreak thing of 2002, and one of the girls said, "Well, you seem okay now!" And man.. that was like one of the biggest compliments ever to me. And of course I had to say, "Well, it's taken a lot to be "okay" now!" And it did. And I still have so much to work on, but at least I've done a lot of work on the surface issues so now that the rest of my crap (weight, etc) might be easier to deal with, once I make the decision to actually stare it in the face and get it over with.

I don't know.. I guess I'm relieved. I'm relieved that the worst part is over. I just remember how completely miserable I was, just a year and a half ago, and to know that people think I'm "okay" and not completely retarded.. that means a lot to me. It means a lot to me that I could totally relate to everyone in my small group even though some of them are married, most of them have really good jobs, and one chick even went to Harvard.. I can't relate to those experiences, but I can relate to the people who have had those experiences, and that's just such a good feeling.

It's just nice to know that I am truly capable of putting the bad stuff behind me. Right? Right.

So yes, I am proud of myself, and yay for me.

And yeah, I learned some stuff about God and the Holy Spirit that I didn't know, and it was indeed good to know, and it made me question some stuff, and people prayed for me, and I prayed for other people, and as of this second, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on things. But, that's okay. I have more of an open mind, I guess.

And, perhaps a nice little mini-crush is developing on a certain boy. I didn't have a crush before because I thought he was like.. in his 30's and married. But, in fact, he is 24 and from what I could ascertain, not attached. And in the past, there was some small signals that were sent out to the universe that made me ponder certain things, but.. let's not go there. I don't want to turn this into a crush of Farm Guy porportions, because that wouldn't be good for anyone.

And speaking of Farm Guy, my dad sent me pictures from the Breeders Cup on Saturday and there one of Farm Guy wearing a cowboy hat, which made me giggle like a school girl. But I'm still not going to the farm any time soon, and I'm just hoping this crush will go away and I won't be tempted to tell him how I feel, because really, let's just face it.. it would be better for everyone if I just got over it. Right? Right.

And yesterday was Halloween, which was spent trying to fix Boy #1's flat tire and also giving out candy to trick or treaters at my mom's house. Yesterday marked 3 years officially since I've talked to Ryan, which makes me sad. But the last time I talked to him I told him, "Just because I don't call you doesn't mean I don't care about you." I guess he took that literally!

Anyway, NANO! YAY! Retreat! Yay! Boys! Yay!

Here's some pictures: