And so it begins



so, the trip has started. actually it started two days ago. i left granger indiana around 5.30am on tuesday the 27th. i am currently in the middle of nebraska for my cousins wedding. pretty much 1/3 of my driving has been done. come monday, i'll be on the road again and on my way to cali.

i'm in the middle of nebraska and i love it here. you'd never guess that a girl moving to LA would love a tiny little town with the population smaller that my church that i attend. it's weird to think it's the same size. everyone knows everyone. they have a gas station called the 'co-op' and you can actually pump gas and add it to a tab. no kidding. on top of that, they have a town square with the court house aand everything. it's mayberry, but cool. i love it here.

i used to have friends here, long ago. i used to come out here for summers and spring breaks because i thought it was such a fun place to be. that makes me laugh. they have farm cats and gravel roads and i love it. i could live here. but i love LA too. it's an odd thing. out of a couple summers i spent a couple weeks on a trip called, "travel camp." it was incredible. i loved it and to this day find myself telling rediculously funny stories about the shenanigans that happened in the confines of the bus or the 'hilary' tent. it's very funny to me. i don't really know anyone here any more. it was a lot more fun when i knew people. mostly everyone has grown up, moved on, gotten married and had a couple of kids, if not one, than more. i'll see a few of the guys that i went on travel camp with tomorrow, at the rehearsal dinner. i have mixed feelings. i'm excited to see them, but i've changed, they;ve changed and really, we may have absolutely nothing to talk about. but i guess we'll always have the shenanigans of the, 'love shack,' 'the hilary,' and everything else that no one should know about. we'll see how it goes, it makes me nervous to see these people. what if i'm not what they remember and what if they aren't what i remember? it's a very nerve racking feeling. not that it matters, i probably won't hear from any of them for the next 20 years after this weekend. we all have lives, right?

we all had dinner at may cousin joes house tonight, it's weird because when i was growing up, that's the house my aunt marilyn lived in and it's nothing a like, it's very surreal. you drive onto the farm and everything is the same, but you walk into the house and nothing is the same. i realized after dinner tonight that this was the first time in a very VERY long time that we were all together. it was like and odd, and HAPPY, family reunion. everyone was laughing and telling stories. this doesn't happen where everyone is there, we're always missing at least a couple. they only people missing are my brothers wife, and his girls, which, they've really never been to a family reunion so, oddly it wasn't weird that they weren't there. if that makes any sense. and i sat there at the table thinking, 'this is what family is, or at least it's what it's supposed to be.' when i was in high school, i loved the movie, 'while you were sleeping.' and there is a line in there where the father says, "for one moment, everything is right. everyone is happy and for that one moment, you have peace." and that's where i was at tonight. i sat there thinking, 'i miss this.' we used to do it every year and people get busy and it hasn't happened as often lately. but for that one moment, we had peace. or at least i did.

then, we get back to the hotel and my sister mentions it's the 29th. which, i knew yesterday that today was the 29th, but it never occurred to me throughout the day. i guess, that's the best way to spend it. i think this is the first time that it's gone by without me noticing. it's an odd feeling. today marks, 16 years to the day that my dad died. i've officiallay lived 2/3s of my life without him. odd.

more on the travel and adventures later. i'm sure i'll have stories from the wedding.

k