February 06, 2006


Forwards/Backwards @ 3am

My 22nd birthday is roughly a month away. I find it hard to believe that it's been a year since all the insanity surrounding my last birthday. Growing up has been an everyday struggle for me, and I fear that's going to continue trudging for quite a few many years, jobs, bills and relationships be damned.

While it would be really insulting for me to barrel on about how "old" I am getting, I'd rather say the emotion comes from what I miss and what I forget.

What have I missed? My sister. She's 17. Seven-fucking-teen. Not just 17 either, she'll be 17.5 just a week before my birthday. That is an absolutely impossible thought in my mind, but I don't think they lied on her birth certificate so it must be true.

What have I forgotten? People. As best as I can tell I've lived a solid 6 chapters of my life so far, each with people of passing importance and events. And it kills me that I don't remember the finer details to all of them. Why I can remember coloring Garfield sheets with Nikki Jones in Mrs. Scroggins' Kindergarten class and not being 15-17 and chatting with Zac Darras all night on IRC when we lived a mile from each other, I don't know.

It was an odd occurance how I came about thinking of him tonight. I just decided to search Flickr to see if anyone had anything tagged under 'tahlequah' other than myself, and there was a good couple pages from Marlan Darras, Zac's older brother and famed local Tulsa musician. And right there, Zac's familiar face in a bunch of Christmas shots alongside pictures of his mother who I saw regularly for years since she was my doctor's receptionist. And I missed him.

It was that instant that I was pulled back into the days of being friends with BJ(Robert) and Cat and the group of unsured genre outcasts that followed with them. And we would sit together on IRC and Zac would always be there, and I remember loving the conversations. And then wishing and hoping that he'd finally get his act together, only to run into him at school the next day and he'd be so stoned off his ass he couldn't form sounds much less than words.

I've had large numbers of people delegated to a memory and occasionally a "What was her name that I used to hang out with?" due to the early 20s complete change most people make. It only leaves me left to wonder who's going to fall out of rank this year. Is there really anyone I know now that I'll still be close to in 5 to 10 years?


Posted by Courtney at February 6, 2006 03:05 AM
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Comments:

Your statement touched me, really. Browsed your flickr page, too. What a strange world...

Posted by: Gert at February 7, 2006 12:11 AM

What's even scarier about me?

I just got my first fucking job.

Kill me now.

Posted by: Caitlan at February 7, 2006 12:56 AM

We're all growing up. The only person I see from HS is Dana. Such is life dear. I miss you.

Posted by: Shannon at February 8, 2006 11:32 AM