5:35 a.m. | 2005-04-08
I Can Bend and Not Break
I remember being about 9 and driving back from Washington D.C. to Virginia with my aunt, father, and cousins in the car. It was the fourth of july and somehow I'd forgotten.
As it got dark I remember looking over and starting to see bright flashes of light. My father (having lived in D.C. almost every summer of his life) immediately pulled the car off of the interstate and parked atop a bridge in the stall lane. We sat there for 40 minutes just watching the bright lights.
In my town people gather around the lake to watch the fireworks, right above, and every year it gets so crowded that people are starting to shop up in the early afternoon just to claim their spots. It's almost always been this way. The city park surrounds said lake and so all day long there are thousands of people picnicking, playing instruments, blowing bubbles, chatting, what not.
Last night obviously wasn't the fourth of July. I was down in Golden for their annual spring school celebration and there was this huge fireworks show (being as it's all engineering students they get to pack and design all of their own fireworks which makes options just about endless). I got to stare, bright eyed, at loud noises and bright lights for a long time.
Afterwards we went and played bingo. Yes, bingo. Because I would have gotten sloppy drunk but I have to work this morning (at 6 am, joy). So I did the responsible thing. But more than that it's this whole theory about going with every opportunity. The whole, "live now, sleep later" philosophy. Because while I easily could have stayed in Wednesday night (and was content to) I didn't. And I pushed my schedule last night so that I could go down there.
I'm making myself back into the person I used to be (only better) one day at a time.
