nostalgia

A Midnight Journey to the Past

Even though we’ve seen it before, Chuck and I watched “Midnight in Paris” last night, to get us in da mood for our upcoming journey to France! I’d forgotten how good it is. Not only is it quirky, charming, and visually pleasing, but it poetically captures nostalgia in a way you don’t think about very often.

Throughout the movie, characters wish they lived in another time – a time each perceives as a “golden age.” One wants to revisit the 1920’s Jazz Era, while others pine for the Victorian Belle Epoque, and still others yearn for the Renaissance.

I know the point of the movie is that every era has its light and its darkness, but it’s still fun to consider – which era would you revisit, if you could take a midnight journey to the past?

This is me with two of the few reasons I attended my high school reunion over the weekend. Rachel is on the left. She is an accomplished pianist who now teaches and specializes in the Taubman method. She has become a master of homeopathic healing methods. Meredith lives in Boston and is earning her PhD in geophysics at Harvard. She is learning to play the fiddle.

Neither of us were in love with our high school experience, so we bonded over being overall misfits in an elitist school that was the inspiration for the now infamous Mean Girls film. Going back was a combination of curiosity, closure, and of course, reuniting with those who made the experience better.

However, it must be said that the reunion with the rest of the class went pretty well, too. Any event like that will have its awkward moments, but everyone was nice, and hearing what the girls have been up to was inspiring… and humbling. Now that I live in a place where it’s a surprise to learn someone has a college education at all, hearing about all the “Oxford”, “PhD”, “Princeton”, “start-ups”, and other miscellaneous accomplishments made me wish I’ve done more with my education and expanded my credentials… until I plummeted back to reality with the realization that my dad is not the CEO of Motorola, and my mom is not the President of the ABC News Washington Bureau… yay for being the financial aid kid… 🙂

Anyway, the weekend overall was a mind-boggling whirlwind. All my worlds were squeezed into a 24-hour time frame! I met with college, post-college, and work friends, then did the high school thing, then met with family. It was so good to see everyone…. but my head sure is spinning 🙂

Sunday afternoon walk in Holly Ridge. Looks like a place Bonni and I would have explored when we were little! We would have ridden our bikes and made our own fort and civilization. Oh, to be a kid again!

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My Trip Back Home

Whoaaa where have I been?! I was MIA the past two weeks, first because I was sick post-Miami, and then because I went home to Northern VA for the whole 4th of July week. I have yet to fully recover from either…

That being said, the trip was very successful, despite my forgetting the fact that just because Chuck and I had the whole week off, doesn’t mean everyone else did. We still managed to see *almost* everyone from both of our social groups, which almost never happens… so I’m pretty happy about that (just ignore the fact that all the pics I’m posting are only of my friends, ha!)

Anyway, our visit also happened to be during the heat wave of 100+ degrees and no power (post Crazy Thunderstorm of 2012), and fortunately for us, Chuck’s parents (our hotel service) were among the fortunate few with power. The excessive heat made for too much sweating for my taste, but also for lots of pool time! I’d forgotten how much I’ve missed the pool. The beach is nice, but sometimes it’s great to take a dip and not deal with sand and overly-aggressive waves bitch-slapping me in the face and ripping off my bikini. 🙂

4th of July itself was awesome. It didn’t consist of the usual high-end, pretentious Georgetown mansion and yacht parties I’ve attended in the past (those invites suddenly stopped once I got hitched), but of low-key BBQ’s and poolside lounging instead. The fireworks in particular were special for me this year. Last year I watched at the USMC Iwo Jima Memorial, while Chuck was in Afghanistan. Fireworks – particularly ones associated with patriotic pride – always have a way of making me cry, and it was only more emotional with Chuck gone. As fate would have it, I got a phone call from him last year, right in the midst of it. This year, I watched from the same spot, with Chuck actually by my side. Like I said – truly special!

We wrapped up the whirlwind week with a HinJew wedding on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. That’s right folks, you heard it right – a Hindu and Jewish wedding! It was such a fun experience, despite the suffocating heat and a few travel mishaps along the way (exacerbated by the fact we were traveling with a miserable feline.) I learned a lot and it was simply beautiful. Better yet – I got to see even more great friends, and danced the night away with them like old times.

Ultimately, I came away from the week realizing a few things. 1) Old friends are one of life’s truest joys and it’s always good to go back home. 2) Some things never change. 3) Almost everything else does change. 4) At the end of the day (or at the end of a nostalgic week going back) I can see that I am exactly where I need to be to move forward – here, in NC with my husband, starting a new life together.

People tend to fear change, but Life isn’t meant to be static and redundant. It’s truly dynamic. You have your constants for sure, but the river keeps flowing and very little is guaranteed. As I reunited with college friends, work friends, and miscellaneous hometown friends, Chuck and I both saw that while we still all have each other to an extent, we are also exploring different paths…Doing our own thing… Moving in various directions..embracing change. We aren’t all so reliant on each other anymore. It’s not like the old days – some things are not quite like they used to be. And yet, we are all more enriched as individuals because of it. Bloom where you’re planted. Always.

I don’t know if that made any sense out loud, but it did in my head… Anyway. Done waxing poetic now 🙂