Monday, April 1, 2013

Playing Catch Up (Part One of Who Knows How Many)


OK, I know that one day I will look back on all of this and realize God had a plan all along.

That I really should be patient and see all of this craziness for the test and character builder that it is and be ecstatic that I am being prepared for something wonderful.  

I just need to sit tight because it would really be a shame to leave 5 minutes before the miracle.

So, the time has come for a much needed update on my life and it will have to happen in parts because the last few months have been equal parts awesome and upsetting, so I will start from the beginning and do my best to get you up to speed.

Well, there was the conference and the disaster that never happened that we call Andy, I turned 33 and accepted my awesomeness and decided I would keep starting the party no matter what.

Some of my family and I went to New York to celebrate Christmas with my sister Stevie because she works for a national television station and can’t usually get days off around the holidays. We can’t bear not to see her so we all buy plane tickets and head east to cram into her Brooklyn apartment that she shares with a roommate all in the name of Jesus…and His birth.

We had a pretty fantastic time, we went ice skating in Bryant Park (so much cheaper and prettier than Rockefeller Center), had a fantastic Christmas morning where we all got tablets (I got an iPad!) among other gifts while still remembering the reason for the season, and my fourteen year old brother and I went to Times Square on Christmas night and took in the awesomeness!

I really love that we have this new family tradition and was sad all of us couldn’t make the trip this year. My sister Shay-Shay and her son couldn’t make it because she’d just gotten a new job and it was my (ex)

While I was in New York, I met up with an old friend from AmeriCorps that I hadn’t seen in a decade. It was kind of awesome seeing him again because looking back, I was kind of a freak (still am and super proud about it), but more awkward than I could ever explain. I mean, I could try, but I don’t think I would do it justice. Rob helped to rid me of some of that awkwardness just by being my friend.

Full disclosure: I totally had a mad crush…and I realize that you know me well enough to know that should have gone without saying.

My excitement could not be contained and found myself wondering how much ten years had changed us. When we knew each other, he was a cynical academic that thought he knew it all and I was…me.

I met him for a beer at a hole in the wall pub in Greenwich Village and it was like no time had passed at all. He was the same Rob…his hair was just longer and he was willing to admit that he didn’t know it all.  He said I was still the same Lainie and I thought he was crazy. I was all “What do you mean?! I was such a freak!”  He just shook his head and said there was nothing wrong with me back then which I just have taken to mean that letting my freak flag fly was totally working for me then just like I am making it work for me now.

We had a few more drinks and decided to brave the rainstorm and have dinner at a Thai place that was (somewhat) close by and talked and talked some more. We were the same Rob and Lainie, but ten years had changed us in ways we didn’t realize, we were wiser (Rob now knows that he doesn’t know everything, I now know the world isn’t made of marshmallows and rainbows.), we also were now aware of how far we’d come. I don’t know everything that happened in Rob’s life over the last decade, but I’m glad I know myself a bit better.

Meeting up with an old friend was able to remind me to keep moving forward and that I really shouldn’t focus on looking back until I come through the other side of whatever this is I am going through.


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