Have I Been Ruined?

I can remember as far back as high school being dedicated to my routine. I had morning band practice, afternoon track practice, several committee meetings and church function. All the activities that I had I never missed nor do I remember it being hard to get up for them.

Then college happened. I slept a lot, skipped a lot and stopped caring a lot. Have I been ruined?

For the sixth time I’ve skipped class; the class that I signed up for in an effort to start making my dreams of becoming apart of the medical community via clinical come true. No one made me, and no one is paying for it besides me. I’m the one who will be directly effected if I fail and have to take it again.

I could blame a million things that make me NOT want to go, but I can think of ONE, stronger than a million other things why I should be there.

When did it get so hard? Does stress of job, life, etc. really make it that hard that television vegetation is the only way to find relaxation and escape? Some how I’ve messed up my priorities. Some how I have lost focus and accepted a lazy, sleep selfish way of doing things.

Something has got to change with me because I can’t keep going this way. Some how it’s all got to work out. Some how…

“Your Mama Voted _____”

Well, at least that’s what my t-shirts said when I ran for Senior Class President in high school. The dash was my real name and the shirts came in bright colors. I think I had several shirts roaming around school and in different classes. My name is short, so I lucked out with easy campaigning. There were these large windows in our high school cafeteria that I took upon myself to use toward my campaign. There were 16 windows and I took up as many as I could. In bright, glitter, all-cap font I wrote “______ for Sr. Prs.” I can’t really remember how I abbreviated things, but trust me it was huge. No one could escape my campaign. This was the place we ate lunch, waited for buses and generally hung out. You could not miss it. 

It was election day and I was completely excited. I was running against severl girls that proved it to be a tough race, but I thought I had it in the bag. I knew about everyone in school and I was seen as this responsible kid that could get shit done. I had gone to tons of conferences and gathered millions of ideas that our senior class could do. I can’t remember if we gave speaches or not, but I know I had one prepared. I felt like there was NO WAY I could loose. 

At the end of the day, they made the announcement as to who one the elections. The final name called was for Senior Class President. I paused, holding my breath, waiting to jump when I didn’t hear my name called but the girl who opposed me. “What the hell?” I said. Of course I was supportive and really just wanted our senior class to have a great year seeing how we were the FIRST seniors to graduate from our high school and it was kind of a big deal.

I remember getting the final numbers and realizing the vote was low. Not nearly as many students voted and she (my opponent) had won with under 50 votes (I think). I couldn’t believe that people had not voted. I sat in class with all these kids and talked with them every single day. 

The next day, when I was going through my classes, people kept telling me they didn’t know election day was yesterday. In other words they forgot to vote. I even had a few people who were wearing my “Your Mama Voted ______” shirts forget to vote. I couldn’t believe it. 

…

This morning I was groggy and very unsure what I was going to do with voting, but I knew I had to. I don’t really like either candidate and really think that no matter what the next four years are not going to be as life changing as we hope them to be. I feel like we’ll need these next four years to recover from the last four years before we’ll see a change, which sucks for either candidate walking into the office this January. 

I was in my car, driving to work, when I just knew I had to vote. I had no reason for why and actually think since I don’t know ANYTHING about either candidate (minus a few things and what I see on SNL) that I can hurt the vote. I’m not one of those that thinks their vote doesn’t count. In fact, I believe my vote can change the world, which makes it all the more scarier to think I just picked on. I’m not going to tell you which one, because then I don’t want to criticized for CHOOSING who I wanted. What I will tell you is one hour and one long-ass line later I voted. 

I wasn’t one of those who “forgot” or decided “my vote doesn’t count”. I wish I could say I was passionate about my vote, but I was more passionate about my right to vote.

Boss’ Day Breakfast

This morning we celebrated “Boss’ Day” by gathering together at Cafe Brazil. In case you were wondering, I had their bottomless cup of Holiday Blend coffee and Pumpkin/Cinnamon Pancakes. So good. 

I always look forward to these office outings. It makes me feel like we all get along and love working together. Plus, the conversations are always laced with random questions about each others childhood and random events. I like those kind of conversations because you really get to know someone when they share stories. I always share too much, but I want them to know me so who cares?

One story I shared this morning was how I dated this guy (back in high school) that played “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by Kenny Chesney on his answering machine (he was so country).

I first shared how cool it was he had his own phone line with answering machine and then how he was a football player that worked at MJ Designs. In case you don’t know what MJ Designs is, it’s a craft store specializing in everything made by you for you to accent your home. The fake plants, fruit, cheesy gifts and candles were always in great supply there. This was an okay job for him to have seeing how I really wanted him to make me a mum for Homecoming and he had all the supplies.

Again, for those of you who are thinking “what the hell is a mum” you have to understand Texas football. Whether your high school’s team was good or bad the football games were always a huge deal. During Homecoming, girls would receive these massive, always too heavy to pin to your bra ribbon things with your name on it, your date’s name on it and things you did in school. They were made in your school’s colors and it was always noted among girls who’s boyfriend loved them more by the size of the mums. I knew a girl who’s actually played music.

Sometimes, if you didn’t have a date for the Homecoming dance, your parents would buy you one to wear on game day. So, it was really important that this guy be my boyfriend until October so he could make me a massive mum. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it beyond May of that year. 

I look back and think about all these things I thought were important about dating and can’t believe the Homecoming mum would make a heads or tails for a relationship. That’s the beauty of high school, you could do that and it didn’t really matter. Or maybe it did and I just didn’t let it matter to me?