I know it has been a while but...
I came into Tally this afternoon to spend some quality "girl time" with Jen and Beth over the 4th of July weekend. I will be here through tomorrow and then go home again.
Somehow tonight, sitting outside on their back porch, listening to people setting off personal fireworks and watching kids by the pool at her apartment holding sparklers and running around, I became melancholy. I started singing for no particular reason "I dreamed a dream" from the play Les Miserables, a play I used to simply adore in high school. I heard the crack in my voice, and felt the effort of holding a note just 3 years ago I could hold in my sleep, and I stopped. When did I lose my voice? I have been a smoker for more years than I care to count, which is part of it, but the truth is that I've stopped singing, even in the shower, hell, even in the car to the radio. Why?
Sitting there, I thought back to when I was a child in St. Augustine where I used to "fight the waves" every summer, and how my "Groddy" (a decade before he died) called me princess Diana on a night just like this and held me as I danced on his shoes to music in my head. I remember him lighting my sparkler when I was done stepping on his feet and I danced around and around like a princess on a stage with that firey stick. I remember how he just laughed, watching me. Do you know that just 4 years ago, I could still go out dancing at some club on a "good" night and that in college dancing was a by weekly event for me. Those that I danced with, like Roberto or Keith Neal, (neither of which I have seen in a few years) truly made those nights magical and both of those guys in particular had a way of reminding me why I was alive on the dance floor. When was the last time I danced.... really danced? I just can't remember the night. Why is it so important now that I am on a cane or a walker for me to remember that very last time?
Suddenly, still sitting outside smoking on Jen and Beths' back porch, I began thinking about how Mom told me that I missed my ten year reunion a few weeks ago. "I don't understand", I had told her. "I thought it was in late July. "It was June 20th," she had told me.
I remembered that my first reaction was, "Wow! That really sucks." Though I had no idea if they would come or not, themselves, I had looked forward to the off chance of seeing some people I haven't seen in ages...like Monica Blakely, my best friend in middle school who transfered into Lincoln and was there our senior year, and Marie or April - the three of us were the "three muskuteers" once, so very long ago. I wonder if they have forgotten.
[On a side note, nostalgia has been working overtime on me lately and I have been dieing to catch up with much of my old friends in the class of '95, as well as people like Fred and Jerry Barker, Daves younger brother, Troy Borders, Paul Matthews, my first true love, and the rest of his family, and most especailly everyone from NBT youth group.]
My second reaction was to remind myself that I wasn't really friends with a lot of the class of '96 ayway. And that I didn't want "those" people, meaning the ones who didn't like me much, to see a Shae who grew up to be disabled, divorced, and housewife-esk. And that I didn't much want "everyone else" meaning those that did talking about how it is a shame the cards that I got dealt.
My third reaction was to wonder if I would look worse at the next one, if I would be in a wheel chair or permenantly on the walker, or, hell, if I would make it to the next one....who knows what another ten years will bring when the last five (not to mention the last 12 years of surgical history) have gotten progressively worse. Will I ever see those wonderful faces I charished so much when I was young again? Why am I afraid I've missed something very important. Why can't I just shrug and move on like the rest who missed it for one reason or another?
I lit a cigarette and looked out on a night of people interecting and sighed. You can't undo the past and I shouldn't complain one bit about the life I live today. I have a lot to be grateful for. Not many in my shoes would have the support and love I have in my life these days and on a night like tonight that should be all that really matters. I really am truly blessed to have the love, committment, and loyalty of a hand full of the most wonderful, longlasting relationships I have ever known. And they are all still in my life...those that know and love me before and after I lost my independance.
Then again....
Damn. Its just that sometimes I look at myself and I see this shadow of that girl I was who dreamed the dreams of becomeing a broadway singer, an olympic swimmer, a public speaker, a mother, a wife who would be honored and charished all of her days by the first and only man she married, a gifted writer, a remarkable teacher, an inspiration and a light...someone who would leave her mark on this world and not be forgotten or abandoned.
Why they hell can't I see her anymore when I look at myself. Why is she just a memory in my head? And how, with everything that has changed, living a life where limitations are simply unavoidable, do I get her back or at least learn how to live an evening like tonight out, smiling bright in a night of people INTERACTING instead of watching everyone pass me by?
Much love everyone...really. Please know, you are all in my thoughts and prayers. Goodnight.
Somehow tonight, sitting outside on their back porch, listening to people setting off personal fireworks and watching kids by the pool at her apartment holding sparklers and running around, I became melancholy. I started singing for no particular reason "I dreamed a dream" from the play Les Miserables, a play I used to simply adore in high school. I heard the crack in my voice, and felt the effort of holding a note just 3 years ago I could hold in my sleep, and I stopped. When did I lose my voice? I have been a smoker for more years than I care to count, which is part of it, but the truth is that I've stopped singing, even in the shower, hell, even in the car to the radio. Why?
Sitting there, I thought back to when I was a child in St. Augustine where I used to "fight the waves" every summer, and how my "Groddy" (a decade before he died) called me princess Diana on a night just like this and held me as I danced on his shoes to music in my head. I remember him lighting my sparkler when I was done stepping on his feet and I danced around and around like a princess on a stage with that firey stick. I remember how he just laughed, watching me. Do you know that just 4 years ago, I could still go out dancing at some club on a "good" night and that in college dancing was a by weekly event for me. Those that I danced with, like Roberto or Keith Neal, (neither of which I have seen in a few years) truly made those nights magical and both of those guys in particular had a way of reminding me why I was alive on the dance floor. When was the last time I danced.... really danced? I just can't remember the night. Why is it so important now that I am on a cane or a walker for me to remember that very last time?
Suddenly, still sitting outside smoking on Jen and Beths' back porch, I began thinking about how Mom told me that I missed my ten year reunion a few weeks ago. "I don't understand", I had told her. "I thought it was in late July. "It was June 20th," she had told me.
I remembered that my first reaction was, "Wow! That really sucks." Though I had no idea if they would come or not, themselves, I had looked forward to the off chance of seeing some people I haven't seen in ages...like Monica Blakely, my best friend in middle school who transfered into Lincoln and was there our senior year, and Marie or April - the three of us were the "three muskuteers" once, so very long ago. I wonder if they have forgotten.
[On a side note, nostalgia has been working overtime on me lately and I have been dieing to catch up with much of my old friends in the class of '95, as well as people like Fred and Jerry Barker, Daves younger brother, Troy Borders, Paul Matthews, my first true love, and the rest of his family, and most especailly everyone from NBT youth group.]
My second reaction was to remind myself that I wasn't really friends with a lot of the class of '96 ayway. And that I didn't want "those" people, meaning the ones who didn't like me much, to see a Shae who grew up to be disabled, divorced, and housewife-esk. And that I didn't much want "everyone else" meaning those that did talking about how it is a shame the cards that I got dealt.
My third reaction was to wonder if I would look worse at the next one, if I would be in a wheel chair or permenantly on the walker, or, hell, if I would make it to the next one....who knows what another ten years will bring when the last five (not to mention the last 12 years of surgical history) have gotten progressively worse. Will I ever see those wonderful faces I charished so much when I was young again? Why am I afraid I've missed something very important. Why can't I just shrug and move on like the rest who missed it for one reason or another?
I lit a cigarette and looked out on a night of people interecting and sighed. You can't undo the past and I shouldn't complain one bit about the life I live today. I have a lot to be grateful for. Not many in my shoes would have the support and love I have in my life these days and on a night like tonight that should be all that really matters. I really am truly blessed to have the love, committment, and loyalty of a hand full of the most wonderful, longlasting relationships I have ever known. And they are all still in my life...those that know and love me before and after I lost my independance.
Then again....
Damn. Its just that sometimes I look at myself and I see this shadow of that girl I was who dreamed the dreams of becomeing a broadway singer, an olympic swimmer, a public speaker, a mother, a wife who would be honored and charished all of her days by the first and only man she married, a gifted writer, a remarkable teacher, an inspiration and a light...someone who would leave her mark on this world and not be forgotten or abandoned.
Why they hell can't I see her anymore when I look at myself. Why is she just a memory in my head? And how, with everything that has changed, living a life where limitations are simply unavoidable, do I get her back or at least learn how to live an evening like tonight out, smiling bright in a night of people INTERACTING instead of watching everyone pass me by?
Much love everyone...really. Please know, you are all in my thoughts and prayers. Goodnight.