A Bad Case of Nostalgia

I asked my mom for our video camera and all of the tapes a few weeks ago. A song that I sang in choir years ago popped into my mind and I wanted to hear it again, so I had to find it on the tapes. There was one big problem with this. Around 1997 (when I entered high school) we got lazy and stopped labeling the tapes. To find this particular concert I have had to go through all of the old tapes that aren't labled(about thirty) and because of my OCD, I want to go thorugh the entire tape and lable everything that is on it. Though it is quite time consuming it has actually been pretty fun. I've spent a few evenings over the past several weeks when I needed a study break looking at a couple of tapes and labeling them. I'm about halfway done with them but I still haven't found the particualar choir concert I'm looking for. (The song is Jubilate Deo, so if you are aware of any recordings of this, let me know. Sorry, I can't think of the composer right now.)

Despite not finding my song yet, I have enjoyed going through these tapes. It's fun to look back at things like my sister's graduation, Christmases of the past, school projects that I had at my high school, Communications Arts HS, and plenty of other random things like family kite flying on the grassy area by my elementary school. These tapes are a reminder of how fun my family used to be. I remember when I was little, going out every Friday to Showbiz Pizza or the dollar theater or to play put-put. As Bridgette and I got older and busier, our family outings consisted of dinner at Outback after our choir concerts or volley-ball games or award ceremonies. Though we became less intentional about spending time together, we still had a great amount of fun. We had some great family vacations as well. We went skiing as a family on four sperarate occasions. We went to Branson, MO one year and splurged another year on a cruise to the Bahamas before my sister went to college. Several of these family times are on our vieo camera because my dad didn't mind carrying it everywhere.

My life is completely different now. My parents divorced my senior year in HS and it changed everything about me and the world that I live in. I miss the past. I usually try to not dwell on things of the past because it makes me sad and my life is not all that bad right now but it has been particuarly hard the past couple of weeks to not long for the simple life I used to have. I was talking about this with a couple of friends the other day and they thought I was crazy when I said that I missed high school. For them, high shcool and middle school were difficult transitional times that were pretty hard for them. When I look back at middle school and high school, I don't intitially remember them being all that hard. I don't recall any dramtic times when I thought my life was over or where I felt like everything in my life was up to me to take care of. I instead recall all of the fun extra0curricular activities I was involved in, choir concerts and CiCi's afterwards, volleyball games and tournaments, Friday nights at The Quarry or the Huebner Oaks Center, coming home from work and sitting on my parent's bed, telling them how my day went. My mind us full of beautiful memories of the past. I don't think that I am blocking out bad memories. I do remember some bad things growing up, but for the most part, my family and my life was ideal.

Though I think I handled my parents divorce with maturity and a complete reliance on God, it is still hard for me. The holdiays are particularly difficult. I don't have much of a home. I don't look forward to the holidays because I hate going home. Who hates going home? Going home for everyone I know means great home-cooked meals, free laundry, and lounging around the house enjoying good company with little responsibilities. It is not that for me. I go "home" to brokenness. I chose to not go home this Thanksgiving and I am instead staying in Waco to work on two papers. I have tried to not get down about this, but it is extremely hard for me. I have tried to except the fact that my family is not the same, but it is not an easy thing to do. I look forward to the day when I will have my own family and I can invite my parents to my home.

I feel heavy right now. No, not fat...I'd have bigger problems if I felt fat. I feel burdened, as if I'm carrying the weight of the world. I have to do most things in college on my own without the support and help of my parents. In fact, within my family, my sister and myself are the parents. I'm not exagerating or seeking sympathy. My parents have become fairly self-absorbed since their divorce. I don't mean that they don't care about us or that they don't love us. It is quite aparent to me that my parents love me, but they don't know very much about what I go through on any given day. My dad has no clue about how his leaving our fmaily has affected me, and my mom well...that's another post in itself. My sister is really the only one who truly understands where I am coming from on this. It is a strange thing to have what looks like a picture perfect family turn into a broken mess. Thank God for His grace or else I don't think I'd be standing on my feet today.

I hope this post doesn't sound too much like a pity party. I don't intend for it to sound that way. I started out with the intention of writing about my tapes and this is where it went.