oh life, you boggle my brain

Have you ever lost touch with a friend and desperately tried to find them again? I'm in that spot. I've looked through our old letters trying to find an email address (which no longer worked), tried to ask some old mutual friends about where she was, and now I'm about to call everyone in the phone book with her last name (luckily there's only ten people in Sacramento whose last name is the same).

And I don't know why. Why would I be so desperate to find her? My only conclusion to that question is maybe because my boss and I were talking this weekend about how when she was my age she had a daughter and her husband had left her, and everyone was trying to tell her how to live her life so she took her baby and up and moved to Hawaii for five years. Then she started talking about her old friend and the trouble they had gotten into the first time she had ever visited the islands. How they must have locked themselves out of their hotel room four times and how they threw fireworks from their balcony. And then she told me how she hadn't thought of that friend in years and how she wondered where that friend was now. Her stories made me think about my old friend who I haven't seen or heard from in three years, and ever since I've had this desperate desire to find her and rekindle that friendship. Because 40 years from now I don't want to wonder where she is or what her life ended up like. I want to know.

It was funny reading through some of our old notes. We had code names for everyone and the most confusing ones were "you know who" and "you know who number 2." I had forgotten about how we had huge crushes on these two boys and that we called them Ned and Bert. And then I found a cootie catcher she had made for me. Remember those? The paper expertly folded with colors on the outside, numbers on the inside, and then your fortune under those numbers? Well she hit a few of those fortunes on the head, one being "you will study abroad in college and see the world" and my most recent worry "you will never be the crazy cat lady." I'm hoping that since fortune 1 is right that hopefully fortune 2 is right as well.

You know, I do worry about that. I'm 22 and I've never had a boyfriend. Which in the grand scheme of things isn't all that bad, but I'm really tired of being lonely. I want to know that someone wants to be around me all the time, that someone thinks I'm beautiful and intriguing. I want someone to surprise me when I get off of work or to call just to hear my voice. I want someone to share secret glances with. Sometimes I just feel a little pathetic. And a little sick of being the bridesmaid. But where do you go to meet a guy? It seems like all the guys at my church are married, and although I see plenty of good looking guys while I'm walking through school, they never seem to be in the same classes as me!

Speaking of school and classes. I've been working hard the past year to get into the graphic design program at school. Last week I turned in my portfolio and this week I'll hear if I made it in. It's a pretty competitive program, there are over a hundred applicants and only forty make it in. So my odds aren't good. But you know what? I feel pretty calm about it. Not calm as in cocky, because I really have no idea if I'll make it in. But calm as in whatever happens, happens. Which I probably shouldn't be seeing as how if I don't make it, I'll have to wait an entire year before I can apply again. But I don't know if I would reapply. I know it's bad, but I almost hope I don't make it in. If I don't make it in, I have no backup plan. I haven't the slightest idea what I'll do. And that's pretty exciting and exhilerating, don't you think? Scary too, but I'll just have to push the fear aside. I mean, I would have NO PLAN. I don't know if I've ever not had a backup plan. And I think that would push me to live outside of my comfort zone and take advantage of being a single 22 year old woman who has nothing tying her down. It would be perfect! I just feel like the only reason I want to get into the program is to feel secure, like I'm moving on with my life, growing up, and not wasting my parent's tuition money. Which are all good things. But what if there's something out there that's better than those good things? What if I'm made for more than all that and I just haven't had the chance to see it yet?

Last weekend, I went back to Paris to be a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding. I don't know what it is about Paris, or anyplace other than home really, that puts me in my element. I mean, I feel like last weekend, I was more myself than I have been in a long time. And happier too. I got along with everyone at the wedding, even though I hadn't known them prior, and they loved me! ME! That's the thing, they loved me, and the me they were loving was the real me, authentic Courtney. I want to feel that way again. And always.

So, enough ranting and complaining WAY to much about my personal life. You want to know something good to end this? Tonight I put on a pair of jeans that I haven't worn in months, put my hand in the pocket a few hours later and pulled out a nicely folded twenty.

Aaah life and it's kind surprises.