110,000 Miles

I moved away to Atlanta ten and a half years ago.  I wrote a little about it here.  It was August 2005 and hot, hot, hot driving across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.   My bestie Amy was with me on that journey.  She already lived in Atlanta and was responsible for recruiting me to live there.  She made several road trip CDs with songs we both loved and we both had dry cuticles and applied cuticle oil every hour - weird the things I remember.   This was before Facebook was really a thing and before iPhones and before lots of stuff....so we talked and sang and moisturized our cuticles and watched out the window as the landscape changed from one state to the next and we headed towards my new life.   My new job.  My new apartment.  My future.

A few months prior to moving, I had been in an accident with a drunk driver - he ran a red light and hit me head on.  Thank goodness I walked away with only a broken wrist from honking my horn when the airbag deployed.   My car at the time was a Honda Pilot and it should have been totaled but the insurance company had it repaired and it was never the same.  It drove kinda wonky and made some funny noises.

After I got moved and settled in Atlanta, I knew I'd need to go car shopping.  I was terrified that I wouldn't get any thing for the trade in.  If the car dealership took one look under the car, they would have known it was a hot mess.  My parents came in town to visit me in March 2006.  My mom was a teacher and my dad always took off the same week as her spring break so they could vacation.  That year they choose to come see me on their vacation and I thanked them by making them go car shopping with me.  It was the first and only time my dad would get to visit me there.

My brother was a Mercedes technician and knew a thing or two about cars.  I wanted a small SUV and he recommended a Jeep Liberty as a good, solid car choice for me that would be in my price range.  So we drove all over Atlanta and the surrounding areas to various Chrysler dealerships to check out what they had in stock.  I opened my big mouth about my accident at one place and they were like....um, no thank you.  Dad coached me a little to keep my mouth shut from there on out.  Then we came really close to making a deal on one at another place, but they finally looked at my (should have been totaled) trade in and basically offered jack-squat for it.  We left with me in tears and my mom and dad reassuring me we'd find something.  I was 28 and should have been able to handle this on my own, but I didn't have to because I have amazing parents.  It was late in the day on Saturday and dealerships are closed on Sunday, so I was panicked.  My parents would also be leaving Sunday, so I wanted this done.

We finally found a place that didn't inspect the car and I drove away with a cute, silver Jeep Liberty. It was zippy, fun to drive and could whip into tight parking spaces like no other.

Five months later in August, my dad died in a stupid motorcycle accident.  I did see him one more time on a visit home in June for my Nanny's 80th birthday party.   I still have the job and I still have the Jeep.  Along the way, I met Jade, moved back to Texas and had some (really damn cute) kids.

Jade mostly drives it now while I drive the kid friendly mini-van but today, of all the days, while I'm driving it, the Jeep turned 110,000 miles.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Wow!  That's a lot of miles between that car shopping memory with my parents and today.  A lot of life has happened.  And I would kill for my dad to be here to have seen it all.  Makes me think of the song "You Should Be Here".  He'd be proud of all of it, especially the kids.  But he'd also be really proud that we still have that Jeep and that it only has 110,000 miles on it.  This car is 10 years old, but I know that even when it craps out and it's time for it to go to car heaven, I will have a difficult time letting it go since it's tied to one of the last memories with my dad.  In the meantime I'll keep the essential oil car diffuser going to maintain the "new car smell" in my 10 year old car!

Kudos to my brother on the car recommendation - it has been a really solid little SUV with minimal maintenance and no major issues just like you said it would be.  So far - knock on wood!!

I Started My Period at Church Camp

I stared my period at church camp.  

(If you think this is a crass topic, then stop reading here. But everyone has periods.  Heck we all wouldn't be here without them, so get over yourself.  If you'd like to read a funny little story about an innocent childhood experience, stay with me.)  

I have the worst memory.  I seriously have a terrible memory of all things old and recent. My friends and family tell stories about things and sometimes I'm like "ohhhhh yeah" but would have never remembered that story on my own. And sometimes  I tell them they are crazy, that wasn't me and I wasn't there.  They assure me I was and I have to believe them.  But today these memories I'm about to share popped into my head on a long flight home from New Jersey and I felt the need to document them before they escaped my brain again, so this entire post was written in my notes app on my phone (please forgive typos). 

If you know me or have read one of my previous blogs about how church makes me cry, it may surprise you how churchy I really was growing up. So churchy I went to church camp and went on church ski trips.   Like, a lot.  I must have been in early elementary the first time I went to camp with Valwood Park Baptist Church.  We were members there.  My grandparents and parents had gone there since forever and so we were all in.  Sunday school, vacation bible school, camp, the whole 9.  All in.   I remember we'd go to church every week then go to my dads parents house for lunch and the Cowboys games. Often my dad and grandpa just stayed home because they didn't want to miss kick off. The Cowboys are Jesus' team, so I'm sure He was OK with that. 

My first camp experience was at a place called Mt. Lebanon.    I just googled it and found that it's full name is Mt. Lebanon Baptist Encampment. I find that a very odd name now. But I digress.  It seemed like a planet away from my little Carrollton cocoon.  We drove FOREVER to get there. Except that we didn't.   Google just told me it is in Cedar Hill, which is in the DFW area about an hour from my childhood home. Funny.  Anyways, we bunked in cabins and rotated between daily outdoorsy activities, swimming, bible studies, church services and the like.  Fun fact:  at baptist camp the boys and girls were not allowed to swim at the same time.  And they encouraged us girls to swim with shirts over our suits for modesty even though there were no boys around. My sister went to Falls Creek, the camp for older kids.  It was the dead of summer in Texas and she wasn't allowed to wear shorts.   Later I'll tell you about going to Methodist church camp where we not only had co-ed swimming, but there was a dance on the last night!  

Anyways, at one of the church services that week at baptist church camp I remember them talking about accepting Jesus as your savior and I got really emotional and went to the front when they asked if anyone wanted to be saved.  We held hands and hugged and prayed and cried and I felt like a new person. I mean, I was like 8 or 10 but I felt so new and different and amazing. Looking back, I wonder what that was all really about. I'm not sure my 8 year old self really knew what she was doing. Or if she just got caught up in all that was going on around her. Or was somehow scared NOT to participate.   I don't think I ever even told my parents about that and I never formally got baptized or anything.  Actually, when camp was over life went back to the way it was before.  I went to church because my mom took us. But I wasn't overly religious.  I was only 8 after all.  

Fast forward a few years to when I opted to start going to Holy Covenant United Methodist Church with my best friend Katy Cook.  She had taken me with her a few times and it seemed more my speed.  Not knocking the baptists. But the Methodist church service was a little more lively.  I mean, we didn't dance in the aisles or anything. But it was more upbeat. The pastor was younger.  The members more diverse.  They ended every service with the same short song that ended with the word Shalom and I thought that was so cool that a Jewish word was used so freely.  So very progressive to my 11 year old self. 

So the summer before 6th grade I went to camp with HCUMC at Camp Bridgeport.  This camp was way different than Mt.  Lebanon.   It could be that I was a few years older so we were offered a little more freedom to move about camp on our own but it was less formal.  More interactive.  And we were allowed to talk to boys.  In fact we talked all week about which ones we had crushes on and hoped would ask us to dance at the little celebration on the last night.  They converted the dining hall into a dance hall with decorations - it was all very "Wonder Years".  Fun line dancing, awkward slow dancing and very pre-teen innocent.  

There was one bad thing about this week at camp though.  I started my period and didn't really realize it.  Like no clue what was happening.  I knew about periods.  I'd had "the talk". But it never occurred to me that THAT was what was happening to me.  I'll spare you all the gross details but let me just tell you that I couldn't figure out why I was getting dirty and my underwear kept getting stuff on them and I kept showering. I must have showered 20 times that week at camp.  I told activity leaders I needed to go to the bathroom and would sneak off to the cabin to shower.  I kept it all to myself.  I didn't tell Katy and never asked a counselor for help.  I just shoved my dirty clothes in my bag and showered.  I can't imagine my parents discovery of my laundry and I don't remember ever talking  about it with them.  It was over a year before I had a period again. Thinking it was my first one for the longest time until I put two and two together and realized what was going on that time at camp. 

Sorry if you find this in bad taste. 

Actually, no I'm not.  I think it's so very sad and funny and innocent.   And also awesome that what could and should have been my most embarrassing week ever is remembered more for boy crushes and sunrise sing-a-longs at the cross on the hill.  Bless my little 11 year old heart.