Sunday, June 21, 2009

Summer and Father's Day

Today, June 21, is a good day. It is the first real day of summer, the longest day of the year, and Father's Day. School has been out for a couple weeks and life is moving forward. We have not gotten many chances to enjoy the sun yet, but as I look out my window I can see that today is not one full of clouds and rain... Completely.

I do not remember ever having this much rain in the summer. In fact, my mom told me a week or so ago that she does not even remember ever having this much rain. I guess it all is just coming together to create my summer that does not feel like summer. Now wait, I am not complaining. I know it probably sounds like I am... But I am not. I actually like that it is really rainy because if it were not then I would really feel like I am missing something while I am in class or at work. I am missing some things, but they do not seem as big as it would if I was stuck in class or at work when it was warm and sunny outside. I love warm and sunny weather.

However, I did not start this blog today to talk about the weather. I started it, for the first time in weeks (whoops!), because today is Father's Day and I just happen to be so lucky as to have two fathers to celebrate on this awesome day.

To tell you the truth, I am not really celebrating them both today. This is because my dad lives in California. We celebrated his birthday and Father's day with him in May, while we were at my sister's high school graduation in Ohio. However, I am thinking about them both. They are both awesome people and I love them and today I just thought that I would share a little bit of that.

The first of my "fathers", as I have already mentioned, is my dad. My dad is a computer programmer who does not like to stay in one place. He is incredibly talented and definitely incredibly smart, but he just does not like to be in one job for too long. That is how he ended up in California. He had been running his own company for a while, probably over a year or two or three or four (I do not really know, my time when it comes to my visits with him is really messed up), and I guess he just decided that he was ready to have a boss again. He started looking around. At first he talked a lot about Oregon and other places like that. He had been talking about moving for so many years that I did not really think that it would happen. You see, my dad does not always follow through with things he talks about. He just has too many ideas and too many plans. I think I got that from him. However, eventually he got this job out in California. He moved over a year ago.

My dad is a goofy guy. I have so many odd memories of us. A long time ago, probably more than four years back, my dad lived in my grandma's basement. I can not remember if this was when we still went to see him every weekend and not every other weekend, but that does not really matter. We spent a lot of our time in really simple ways and then really not all at the same time back then. A lot of Saturdays were just spent hanging around grandma's house, playing on the trampoline or watching tv with dad downstairs. One particular Saturday we were listening to music, watching tv, eating breakfast (or lunch or snacks or whatever), running through the house... Whatever, while dad was cleaning up the basement. There was this one particular song that he loved: The Country Death Song. It is a good song. In fact, I wish I had it on my laptop (fixing that as I type... Ha ha.) It is a crazy song. The lyrics are not something you would expect to find a dad dancing around the room singing to his daughters. I loved it, though. I love that song.

When you live more than half an hour away from your dad you find that you spend a lot of time in the car when you go to visit him. Or at least, that is how it was with us. We always were doing something, always going somewhere. So we all got very used to travel small talking/goofing off. We would listen to the radio while some of us talked or joked or played. You would not expect the driver of a vehicle to be participating that much in all of that, but he usually did. One thing that he always seemed to do... It would be quiet in the car or the person up front with him would be quiet or someone in the back would be quiet... Whoever it was, he would look at them (whether directly if they sat next to him or through the rearview mirror) and say/sing "On the first day of Christmas my Mackie gave to me..." and sometimes he would go on or sometimes he would stop there. Always using the nickname he preferred for each of us, because we each have a nickname. I have always been Mac or Mackie or some other form of it. Always.

He is also a tall guy. Practically a giant. None of us will ever reach his size. Which is cool. I love that he is so much taller than all of us. At least that will never change. He crazy red hair. It is really really long now. His hair is kind of a thing between me and him. Every time I see it it is so much longer and every time I tell him: "Dad, seriously, you really need a haircut." And we have been doing this for years. I love it. Some people do not always think I am joking. Sometimes the joke turns sour when someone will get mad at me, but it is never dad. He gets that I am just kidding. I really think is long hair is awesome. It is kind of who he is now. He did not used to be like that. The long hair would no have fit him during the days of our weekly visits.

Mmm. I can not get the image of my dad dancing and singing with his 5 daughters in my grandma's basement (or anywhere for that matter) out of my head. It is definitely one I cherish.

Anyway, dad. I do not know if you read my blog anymore... Whether because you are just too busy or whatever else... But if you are, know that I am thinking about you. That I miss you (I pretty much always miss you). That I think you are awesome. That I love you. Happy Father's Day.

The next "Father" that I am celebrating today is my step dad. At this point in my life he has been around longer than not. And though we may not seem like the best of friends sometimes, and though we did not neccessarily 'click' from the very beginning, I have no idea what any of us (me, my sisters, my mom) would ever do without him.

Bill is a goofy guy too. However, his is a different kind of goofy. I could never see him dancing or singing like my dad does. It is just not him. Which is good, because I think if I saw anyone other than my dad doing that I would find them plain strange... Well... My dad is actually pretty strange. Bill does a lot of impersinations. A lot of the time I do not get them, but they are funny anyway. They make me laugh.

My family is really close. We all do a lot of things together. We watch a lot of movies and play a lot of games. We go camping and boating and four wheeling. We hang out in the back yard or in the living room and just talk. Just last night we all stayed up playing Mario Kart. Laughing and screaming as Mario passed Yoshi (which is amazing because the person playing Mario sucks... he he.) or Baby Daisy got first place again. It was great. It was great that Bill stayed up and played with us even though he had to get up really early to go to work this morning.

When we watch movies, more often than not we will be watching something that Bill and my mom have seen and loved. It is always fun because I like a lot of the same things as my parents. A long time ago (back when we were all night owls) we would spend all night watching movies and Bill would be the last one up as we all lay asleep on the couch. Eventually the tv would get turned off and we would all go to bed after talking about the movie for a few minutes: what we slept through, what was good, when they saw it the first time... Anything.

Bill and I like a lot of the same foods. The only main exception that I know of is fish. I can not stand fish. However, basically anything else he cooks I eat. I love spicy things. He probably he things that are a lot more spicy than I would ever eat, but I like spicy food more than anyone else in my family beside him. I also eat the same kind of steak as him. When we go to a restauraunt that I've never been to before I ask him what I should get.

Bill always has projects going and often they sit there for a long time without being finished. However, a lot more gets done than not. He built the wall that turned our basement into the bedroom that I loved until I had to move upstairs because Abby and Linzie needed more space, he fixes the dryer, the washer, the dishwasher, toys, skateboards, boats, four wheelers, cars, name it and he has probably been asked to fix it.

I remember how things were before he and my mom got together... A little bit at least. We had a sock basket where all of our socks went and we would have to dig through it everyday to find socks that matched, we never went camping, we did not have movie nights or game nights. Our favorite dinner was cheesy spaghetti (and what is wrong with that? I love cheesy spaghetti....) However, I love grill nights a lot more.

I do not know. There is so much I could say about Bill. He is there for me. That is a really important one. He is there for all of us. He does so much for all of us girls. Of course there have been hard times. Everybody has them. The important thing is that we all stick together. We are there for him and he is there for us.

Happy Father's Day Bill. You are amazing. Thanks so much for all that you do for me. I love you. And I am sad that you had to work today and that we can not just all hang out. Waking up, making you breakfast, and watching cartoons with you at 5 this morning was fun though. You rock. :D

So yeah. There is my Father's Day blog. I just wanted to say a little something since it was been over two weeks since my last blog. Happy Father's Day. Happy first day of summer! Let us hope the sun decides to stick around!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Losing Friends, Gaining Memories

The last day of school is always one of mixed emotions. Students are so excited to see the year coming to an end and summer coming toward them at full speed. They are also sad to lose some friends (either by going to different schools or moving to new places). I do not think there is really any way to fix it other than by putting yourself in the right frame of mind. This is what I had to tell my little sister today (a girl she knew is moving to Germany and she is very sad about it) and what I am feeling that I need to be reminded of right now. Things happen. We're teenagers and, to be frank, we are never the most reliable friends. I know that. However, it still sucks to be left out or to have a friend promise they will stay in touch just to never hear from them again. I know that we have these problems and I know that we all just have to learn to deal with them, it is just life, but it still hurts. So I understand why my little sister was crying about her friend today, I understand why all of the ninth graders at Fairfield were having a hard time. I am having a hard time with a friend situation, myself.

mL is a great friend of mine and I believe I have mentioned her in this blog several times before. I met her in my 8th grade science class. Mrs. Nelson's sixth period, second semester. We spent a while sitting next to each other. I am not going to lie and say that we were best friends from the start. No, we were merely acquaintances for a while. Then, in 9th grade I pretty much just told myself that she was my friend and I started hanging out with her a lot more. We became really good friends. On her birthday that year I had a sleepover at her house. That sleepover ended up spanning the whole weekend. It was just way too much fun. Every time that I have spent a night at her house since it has turned into a weekend long adventure. We have done school projects together and we have had conversations about serious issues. I have helped her through bad times and she has (whether knowingly or not) helped me through a lot as well. We were really close all through 9th grade and we even did some things together last summer (which is major for me because I never do anything with anyone during the summer (with exception of the summer I spent with Morgan)) and it was great.

I bet anyone reading this can hear the 'but' at the end of that sentence.

High school was never something I was nervous about. mL and I had planned our schedules together, and with any luck we would have had the exact same schedule. If that had happened we probably would be a lot closer now than we are. However, I found things that I really wanted to do that mL did not. So we decided that a few differences in our schedules would not hurt.

There is another girl who fits into this tale that I am weaving. Her name, for now, is Fern. Fern is a girl that I have known since... 4th grade? I am not sure. The important thing, though, is that Fern and I never got along. We hung out with the same people but we had completely different personalities and very similar tempers. Needless to say, we got into a lot of arguements during elementary school. Neither of us liked each other. So when we got to junior high we were not around each other much. She found her niche and I found mine. I honestly never ran into her until 8th grade science. Then we pretended as if nothing had ever happened. We were friends and all that was between us was stupid elementary school arguements. Which was true. However, when two people clash like that there is not much room for friendship.

mL and Fern became good friends. I like to think that during 9th grade and the summer after I was closer to mL than Fern was, but I do not know. Anyway, Fern had first lunch while mL and I had second lunch. So never actually had to be around Fern and mL together during 9th grade. I never realized they were such good friends. Then, when we got to high school we all started hanging out together. There was only one lunch. I only had one class with mL and Fern had at least one that I know of. We kind of started to drift apart that first semester. And, though I tell mL that I do not know why that is, I know exactly why. It did not take very long to realize that Fern really did get on my nerves. Now that we all had only one lunch, Fern was always around. She was constantly talking to mL and they were becoming closer by the day. I was becoming farther and farther (Which I do not mind, I think it happened for a reason. I found my true best friend. I can honestly tell Kara anything and even if we disagree we will always still be friends. She is like another sister to me.) and I honestly hardly noticed it.

There was this big weight being held over all of us, though. All year long we knew that it was going to be our last year with mL. We knew that we would not have all summer with her and that in the blink of an eye she would be gone. Second semester came along and mL and I started talking again, but we had lost that bond that we had had before. She was still one of my closest friends and I still loved her (I always will) but we had gone four and a half months without talking to each other hardly at all. We found out when and where mL was moving. It was time to start planning for her big goodbye.

She and I have plans. Big ones that will hopefully follow through. We will have one more sleep over weekend. We will watch some of the movies on my list of "Movies mL Has Not Seen That I Love" and maybe we will go to Lagoon. However, there are people who would be mad at me for even considering taking a weekend of our now limited time with her.

Fern now considers mL her best friend. I do not care about that. However, the fact that Fern thinks that she owns all of mL's time before she moves makes me so mad. I am going to miss her to. More than she will ever know. mL was the first friend that I ever got really close to. She was the first girl who I let really know me. Her was family was the first (outside of my own) that I ever really became comfortable with (and still remains the only one).

What hurts even worse is that there all of these activites being planned, one that I even suggested, that I'm really not even being informed about. I do not know if it is just because I have been busy or what, but it sucks because I am going to miss mL too. I want memories of her last few weeks here also.

mL and I have all of these ideas for after she moves: I am going to go visit her, she is going to come visit me, and even though she will be living in a completely different state she will be forced to come on my senior trip with me. However, I know how hard it is for people to actually implement plans when they are living completely different lives in completely different places. I do not want to become the old friend who turns into simple emails here and there. It would suck to have another friend go away without some majorly good memories to look back on. I need proof. I need pictures. Just the memories are never enough. Memories fade, they turn into a fog that comes in every once in a while. I do not have pictures! I am not making memories because I can not come to things when I am given the details the minute it is happening. And it sucks that I am becoming an afterthought already.

So, I understand. I get why my little sister is upset that a friend she has not hung out with in a while moved to Germany today. I am also beginning to feel very hypocritical about telling her that she should not be upset. I am upset. I am really upset. I will be all right, though. I know that. I need to really grasp, though. It is one thing to know something and another to feel it. I need to feel that it will be fine. I need to feel that mL moving is not going to absolutely, totally, and completely suck for a long time. Right now I do not feel that. Right now I just can not picture mL not being around. It seems impossible to me. And it really, really, really sucks.