Today is a very important day. In exactly three weeks- twenty-one days- I will be jetting off with my family to gorgeous Denver, Colorado to begin the next chapter of my life.
It. Is. A HUGE. Deal.
I am massively aware of this fact. Every time I’m talking to somebody, like a relative, a hairdresser, or the teller at the bank (I’m the most entertaining person they see all day, barring any mental patient antics) and my impending lifestyle change comes up casually in the first five minutes, they usually say something like, “Aren’t you excited?”
“Yes, I’m very excited. It’s beautiful there,” I say demurely, smiling and looking up through my eyelashes like Audrey Hepburn does in old movies. But inside, my heart just did three backflips up my esophagus, causing a jolt of adrenaline and a rapid stream-of-consciousness.
"Hell yeah, it’s freaking gorgeous! I wonder if I’m going to need a coat. I WILL need a coat. I’ve never needed a coat on a daily basis before. Maybe I should get one of those timeless Burberry trenches and knot it around my slim waist as I float through the campus, sipping green tea lattes and reading Proust. Burberry trenches call for Proust. Nah. Most likely I’ll get one of those super-insulated black puffballs with the faux-fur around the hood that will make me look like one of the hamsters in that car commercial. Run from the human-sized hamster! It’s aliiiiiiiive!! Hehe. Wait. What if my jacket isn’t warm enough? Will faux-fur insulate my sensitive earlobes? What if a snowstorm hits and all I have is a cheap American Eagle sale jacket? And I fall in a snowdrift and run in, sopping and late, to my hardest class? What do sorority girls wear in winter? Pink windbreakers? Will I join a sorority? Will I read Proust? And what will happen when (not if) I fall into a snowdrift and soak everything I own? Do you put your books in the dryer or blowdry them like The Incredibles? What will happen to my beautiful (and fictitious; clearly I start hallucinating) Burberry?”
But, in lieu of insanity, what do I say instead?
“I can’t wait to go shopping! Target has super cute towels.”
Deep. The Burberry shuns me.
So if my audience has a deeper relationship with me than the bank teller or gas station cashier, they usually smile politely, if not a tad indulgently. Then they hit me with another whammy, like, “What are you planning to major in?”
En guarde! And the mental battle begins again.
My mother, unfortunately for her, lives just down the hall from me. Therefore, she receives the most unfiltered script, usually while she’s trying to work. And, being much more mentally sound than myself, she tells me like it is. To paraphrase, she says something like, “You worry too much. Enjoy yourself. There’s only so much you can do before you drive yourself crazy- and drag me down with you. Now run along and go shopping. I have an empire to run.”
(A more accurate transcription: “Whaaaaa? I was half-listening after you started talking about a shopping schedule. Find a friend, get a job, and stop annoying me. My hours are six-to-eight on non-Happy Hour days.” My dad's technically the boss and she's just his secretary, but let's face it: he's Darth Vader, but SHE'S Palpatine. JFGI)
My mother, phrasing aside, was correct. I was so worried about my Next Great Hurdle that I wasn’t really living in the moment this summer. My entire week was revolving around appointments and errands meant to prepare me for the ever-looming deadline. My head was so wrapped around in knots that it looked like a giant rubber band ball. I needed to go out into the world and LIVE!
Which is why I spent last night eating dark chocolate, painting my toenails on the couch, and watching Disney movies on VHS.
VHS! Remember that, kiddies? That was far before movies could fit in the palm of your hand, or before you could record and rewind any little sitcom at the drop of the hat. It actually took WORK.
I sound like a crotchety old lady. (Crotchety. Teehee.)
Anywho, my brilliant sister came up with the idea. We have a huge shelf full of “vintage” VHS classics like Tarzan and Angels in the Outfield (you thought that we’d forgotten you, preadolescent Joseph Gordon-Levitt--never), as well as a giant VHS collecting dust under our TV. “I can hook up my Apple TV in three minutes flat,” I boasted. “This should be a cinch.”
Thirty-five minutes of swearing, wire-fishing, and electrocution later, we had yet to get the damn thing to click. I got in trouble with my sister for saying some very dirty words in front of the Disney movies. She shoved past me and tried to push her lanky five-foot-ten frame behind our TV.
“Pull that plug thingy.”
(grinding teeth together) “Which one?”
“The white cable thing into the grid on the back of that thingy.”
“There’s a power cord.”
“From the VHS to the cable box?”
ZZZZZZZZZT.
…
“That wasn’t right.”
Once we were both close to a mental breakdown, I busted under her legs to fiddle with the wires one last time. “If I don’t get this in five minutes,” I swore, “I’ll just use the damn OnDemand. This makes Steve Jobs cry.”
“LANGUAGE!”
*siiiiigh*
Finally, it splutters and whirs to life to our triumphant Spartan cheers. After a fistfight with the rewind button, and a fierce debate about which way the cassette goes in, the screen flickers to life. We run to turn out the lights. We snuggle into quilts. The Disney emblem soars across the screen. A lion roars in the distance. Slowly, beautifully, life begins on the savannah. The Lion King has begun.
Suddenly, there is peace. Both of us become entranced by the beautiful artistry, touching feet under the blanket. We don’t speak, except to mouth lines and make the occasional fangirl comment to the other. (For example, “I love that Ferris Bueller and Simba are essentially screen brothers.”) It is an hour-and-a-half of bliss that I haven’t experienced for a month.
At one point, I decide to try to do laundry. As I ease myself up, my sister hisses, “Where are you going? There’s no pause button.”
No pause button? I had forgotten this. I live on the pause button. I now recognize its little indent on my thumb without looking. This allows me to, in the present day.
Of course, I realized that you could, in fact, press stop and wait for the other person. But I understood my sister’s frustration a little. Running to do another task in the middle of this serendipitous moment was a bigger commitment. Everything would have to STOP, midstory, for something that could wait for another forty minutes.
I’m feeling very philosophical as I write this- The Lion King does that to me. So I apologize for the soap box. Life doesn’t have a pause button. There’s a stop, and there’s a play. Laundry and college lists and winter shopping could wait for a night. I see what my mother was trying to say now. Life doesn’t pause- but everything comes soon enough, no fast forwarding required. For tonight...
Hakuna matata.
(Still so true. And if you’re one of the rare individuals who has never seen this movie... shame shame. It’s very powerful. And no, it’s not on Neflix.)
