Category Archives: our history

memories, our history, random musings

Taking time to look back

I just finished reading the book Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella, in which the lead character loses three years worth of memories in an auto accident. Set in 2007, Lexi only can remember her life up through 2004, and she is left to struggle to fit into her own life which has changed dramatically in those three years that she can’t remember.

As I read — no, devoured would be more precise — the book, I couldn’t help but muse over how much my own life has changed in the last three, five, even ten, years. Not just how my life has changed, but how much I’ve changed on the inside.

Over the last few years, I’ve come out of my shell dramatically. When I take a personality test, I now straddle introvert and extrovert, whereas even just three years ago I still was firmly an introvert. Even as I thought I’d live in Nashville some day, I never expected it to so dramatically become HOME for me. I have made countless connections with people here and across the country whom I can’t imagine not knowing today. Every connection, every challenge, every change has helped to shape the person I am today.

Today is my second wedding anniversary, and its so true when I say that I love my husband more today than I did when we said our vows on that warm January day in 2007. To be honest, I think there was a time I didn’t think I’d ever marry… much less discover someone who is so completely my other half and without a doubt my soul mate.

It’s been over five years since I graduated from college, and its been almost ten since I graduated from high school. Oh my how different I am since high school!! Honestly, I’m not sure I’d recognize who I am if my high school self met my married-living-in-another-state-doing-odd-jobs self.

As Christmas cards arrived in the mail — several from old friends that I’ve known for many, many years — I looked at pictures or read notes, and I mused over how we’ve all taken our own paths in life. How this one has children. This one has gotten divorced. That one is on the fast track of their career. These are married and enjoying their life of marital bliss. And yet we all jumped off the spring board into life from the same place at the same point. While life has taken us different ways, in our hearts we will always be the dearest of friends.

There’s no way to ever comprehend what it would be life to lose years of your life’s memories, but it is possible to look back and see how each of us have changed. While some of those changes were wonderful and others hard to get through, they all shape us and take us to wherever we each are at any given time. I am grateful for everything that’s taken me to where I am today. Because I’m happy. I have my challenges to deal with on any given day, but those challenges only show me that I am alive and living a life of my own. Living a life I never want to forget.

flying, ironic musings, our history

Fly girl

In 2004, I boarded my first plane. I was nervous, not only for the flight but for the adventure upon which I was about to embark.

I remember listening intently to all the safety procedures that the stewardesses presented. I took a deep breath and held on tight. Away we went! Landing was a nerve wracking experience, but it went fine and I soon found myself standing, for the first time, in the Nashville International Airport.

I had traveled to Nashville to spend my first trip far away from my parents. It was a week with a friend — one that I had absolutely no clue would end up being my husband three years later in a city I hoped to some day live. I ended up having a good time, though stresses surrounding my presence left me on the couch much of the time with an upset stomach and migraine headache. I succeeded, nonetheless, in experiencing many of the highlights of Nashville, and I left the city a week later feeling smarter and glad I’d made the trip.

It would be over a year before I’d fly again, but since then I’ve logged thousands of air miles. Every single one of them due to my husband. Trips to Nashville to visit as our relationship changed and grew. Then trips to Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas, Nevada; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; and Honolulu, Hawaii… all with (or to be with) my traveling musician. I’m an airplane professional!

Today, I fly to visit my family back home in Texas. I continue to log the miles constantly, and the tales of my travels seem to always have an amusing angle to them. Everything from flying to point A and renting a car to continue to point B, to spending hours and hours in an airport waiting for a delayed flight.

My latest two flights both consisted of seeing my husband off… behind security.

This last trip back home occured only an hour before my husband caught a plane himself to a show. We ended up going through security together, kissing good bye, and then walking to opposite terminals to catch planes going to completely opposite ends of the country. The time before, I landed back in Nashville only a few hours before he took off for a show. He drove our truck to the airport, and as I kissed him hello and goodbye, he handed me the keys to drive it back home!

Being married to a musician always guarantees that things will not be boring. I rarely go with him on the road, but I do try to go any time I can. It’s allowed me to see placed I’d have probably never seen otherwise. Three years ago, I was terrified to fly. Today, it’s as natural as walking. I look forward to our next adventure!