Two years ago on (or shortly before) July 4th, I moved out of my parents' house. In all my cleverness, I felt it appropriate to give myself indepence during Independence Day festivities. Timing, I admit, that I regretted when the Centerville parade announcer set up shop right across the street and awoke me at 8 AM on the 4th. To add insult to injury, he wasn't even announcing anything important. (Also, he was the same stake high councilman who liked to call me a flautist and not a flutist--something I disliked, because I wasn't playing a flaut, I was playing a flute . . .)
At around the same time last year, one of my best childhood friends and I moved out to Salt Lake City. But she went back to Centerville and I stayed in Salt Lake, where I knew absolutely nobody. (At least, not yet. I think it highly unfair to say there's nobody I know here now) So last Fourth of July, I sat on my bed and watched the fireworks show I could see by looking directly out my window. That moment, incidentally, is one of the few moments in my life where I've felt very much alone and unsure of what I was doing with myself.
This year, as my roommates and I (and a couple of our friends) hiked around to get a view of the fireworks from Sugarhouse Park, the Bees game, or--better yet!--both, we finally found a spot and settled in. And I couldn't help wondering where I would be at this time next year. And who I may or may not be watching fireworks with.
It didn't make me sad. But it was yet another thing to wonder about.
And on a fireworks related note, I spent last ngiht at my parents' house and my brothers executed a show for the benefit of my almost 2-year-old niece and my 3-and-a-half-year-old nephew. (He's at the age where the halves are so important) It may well be the first fireworks show my nephew will actually remember.
My poor little niece was not terribly fond of the fireworks. In fact, that's the understatement of the year. As soon as the first of them went off, she started crying and yelling, "I don't like this! I don't like this!" She wouldn't even look at the fireworks until she was safely in the living room, behind the door. Then she would watch.
My nephew, on the other hand, will make an excellent scout in the future. As the fireworks show progressed, he bounced up and down, excitedly yelling, "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
2 comments:
No way! I had that same clever thought of declaring independence on independence day last year. And my results were similarly nonplussing--at least initially....
AwW, don't be peeved: flautists get paid more!
Ah yes, next year: always very mysterious--especially in this phase of life, no doubt.
Funny how morbid curiosity can always coax one into watching something one claims not to like; very telling of human nature, methinks--or maybe I'm just saying that for sounding deep when my mind's as empty as a kettle drum....
I was thinking about your changes thoughts, and it seems like changes always come when you don't want them to. I just broke up with my boyfriend, and it was actually something out of the blue, something that we both felt at the same moment. Crazy how sometimes, people want to change with you.
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