Allow me to be the first (that I know of) to rip off LJ's post. And thus follows my own collection of memories that I would "take with me":
The night Lindsey and I sat on the swings in the prodigious Tennessee rain, until our butts hurt, until Uncle Mark had to come looking for us, while she told me stories about Preston. Preston's service - the afterglow, really - that was far more party than funeral, with the glowsticks and the pizza and everybody playing their instruments.
Riding shotgun in Stelth's lime green VW Rabbit in the night. With goggles on. And no windshield.
The original "Morgy." 15 people piled onto two blankets in my front yard to watch a meteor shower on an impenetrably cloudy night. We have most of it on tape.
Reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night with Andy on top of the pile of (all the) blankets from U-Hall during move-out Freshman year, and finding "The Spot."
The day it snowed so hard that school got cancelled and 7 boys in snow gear showed up at my house. To go sledding - at that bloodthirsty hill on Taft - now a King Sooper's parking lot.
Laying in my bed with the lights turned off, hearing Andy's voice for the first time in two years and feeling like it was the summer we were 18 again. The night I flew into Redmond, how he finally had the guts to make the first move and held my hand on the way back from the airport, and we didn't go inside the house (which looked just as it should have) but instead went for a little walk (and the woods, the air, the nightsounds were all just as they should have been) and I laid down in the middle of the road and he said, "I was going to do that," and he tried to kiss me and I said, "Not yet" - but I got him in the morning.
Breaking ice with rocks at the bridge. Angrily but joyfully.
Playing In The Rain With The Reichmans, Episodes 1-3: Hooray, the Tennis Court Has 6 Inches of Standing Water!; Trampolines: Slippery When Wet!; and The Street Has Become a Waterslide - Can I Borrow Some Pants!
The Celestial Room. I mean it.
Seeing four of my siblings and their husbands and wives all sitting in a row on the other side of the altar (every time I looked at them I sobbed anew) and having my arm around Andy when, at precisely the same moment, my mother put a kleenex in my left hand and his mother put a kleenex in my right hand, and I held them up in front of me and started laughing, and everybody laughed, and the sealer didn't know what we were laughing at.
All of the parties at Maren's are kind of rolled up into one: the unveiling of the Marquee, the boxing match of Steve McCrady vs. Ms. Bliss, the helium, the roulette table and the Shirley Temples in my red sequin dress while Putlack repeats the joke, "Why don't we slip out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini?" over and over.
Broken-arm Stelth imitating a record player for me on the marching band tour bus just to make me laugh.
Seeing Dave hold his firstborn for the first time.
When Andy threw pinecones at my window.
"Here comes the Self-Esteem Engine! Chugga chugga chugga chugga YOU ROCK!"
The time my nieces (probably 3 and 5) thought I was dead, discussed the option of giving me a blessing, and proceeded to put their hands on my head until I burst into laughter.
Watching Andy do vocals and keys with his sweet band for Jen's swanky summer birthday party, feeling all swoony for my own personal rock star. Especially during "Shady Lane." He's everybody's gosh, he's everybody's gosh...
The letter from Mr. Moore. He thinks I can.
Apartment-wide carpet cleaning > couches on the balconies > me and T-bone sleeping on those couches > thinking the paper boy wants to kill us.
Sleeping in the backyard of Cambridge South on a pile of blankets, cushions, and several of my favorite ladies.
My 18th birthday, a.k.a. the best day of my life up to that point. I turned 18, my dear brother returned from his mission, I won $100 in the Silver Spoon Film Festival (1st in animation, 1st in comedy, and 3rd overall), and me and my dearest friends (except, ironically, for Andy and Stelth) went to Freddo's and consumed three buttloads of ice cream ... and I felt so much love that I climbed Freddo's tree and cried. All in one day.
The Octoberfest/Barbershop Championship/Denny's day.
Ethan's blessing, and the weekend leading up to it. If you've seen Dan in Real Life, that's what it was like, only with less romance and more church.
The morning I woke up and my best friend was making pancakes in his underwear, and he kissed me and gave me the first batch.
This list is not comprehensive. Dang I hope I have a better memory after I die than I do now.
2 reason(s) to click here:
Thank you for the ripoff. I would add to my list the night I tucked you and Holly in and then sang you to sleep with cowboy tunes crooned to Little Boy Blue. That was a blessed night.
This is really neat. I feel inspired.
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