many mundane moments

My life Monday

Rachelle has started a new thing to post on topics about our lives. I think it's a great idea, so I'm going to play along.

This week's topic is supposed to be "my most memorable experience". That's a hard one for me because I remember all sorts of random facts about different experiences. It's hard to pick a "most". I think I'm going to tweak it a bit to "my most significant experience". So, here's a novel for you-

I was a high adventure (rock climbing, caving, backpacking... the cool stuff) leader for the 15-18 year olds at a girls' camp for a week when I was 20. At this point I'd been out of high school for about a year and a half. I graduated late because I was a lazy ass. I was working two jobs- one I liked quite well and one I didn't like at all, but neither of which paid very well or had much of a future. Helping out at camp was a welcome break.

It was held at a boyscout camp that year. About halfway through the week, the director of the camp decided that the girls needed a lecture about talking to boys. Hello? What did she expect? She took about 100 girls to a boyscout camp at the end of summer. The mostly teenaged male staff hadn't seen girls in months. Of course they were going to talk to them.

This was mid August, during the annual Perseid meteor shower. One girl in particular wanted to watch it. She and about 5 of her friends asked if they could, so being immature as a leader and thinking it was ridiculous for the girls to be in trouble and therefore not wanting to make an appearance at the lodge myself, I conseneted. We found a nice stretch on the shore of the lake and literally laid low while everyone else was congregating to be lectured.

I have to say it was an incredible experience watching that meteor shower in the pitch black darkness of being in the middle of a forest. Beyond that, it was the conversation that made it so significant. Kristen, the girl who spearheaded the campaign to stay out and watch the show, was a 15 year old girl who I used to babysit. Discussion turned to future plans and what we wanted to be when we grew up. I say we, because even though I was 20 and there as a leader, I was far from grown up and had yet to do anything with my life. At 15, Kristen had great plans for what she wanted to do with her life. At 20, all I could do was shrug. I wanted to do something, maybe teach, but I'd made no steps toward that- or anything else, for that matter. I was still living at home and stagnant is probably the best word to descibe my life at that time.

I went home with a new sense of purpose and determination. That simple conversation led to an avalanche of events. It was the turn on your toes, about face, kind of change my life needed. On Monday I ordered certified copies of my ACT scores. On Thursday I took them to the admissions office at the local science and engineering school where I paid a $15 fee and was given a letter of acceptance. Orientation started the next Wednesday. I quit the job that I didn't much like with only a few days notice. What followed over the next year was a string of events much too orchestrated to be called coincidences. so

-Kristen, the girl I used to babysit, sparked in me a desire to do more with my life than work two insignificant jobs.
-I started college the next week and met a boy named Drew during the math placement test.
-Drew and I didn't hang out much, but he introduced me to a girl named Angela who became a fast friend.
-Through Angela, I met John, Jimmy, and Joel.
-The five of us hung out almost daily over the next semester and I spent so much time at the dorms that I ended up moving out of my mom's house over winter break.
-At the dorms, I was assigned gross roommate, Debbie.
-Gross roommate Debbie added little to my life in terms of being a roommate, however about a month before school was out she mentioned applying for a job in the dorms over the summer. She made it sound so appealing that I also turned in an application.
-I happened to get the job, which made for an akward moment when gross roommate Debbie stopped into the housing office one day that summer.
-Working in the dorms, I met coworker Michelle, who became one of my greatest friends.
-Co-worker Michelle was friends with Josh and Krystal. We all hung out a few times, including camping over the 4th of July and me being the designated driver for Michelle's 21st birthday.
-working in the dorms over the summer also meant I was there when all of the students returned for the fall term.
-a few days before the huge influx of students arrived, a cute boy in yellow sunglasses walked through the lobby while I was working at the front desk.
-I was entranced and simply had to talk to him. All I could think to say was "do those glasses make you happy?"
-the cute boy in yellow sunglasses stopped to talk for a few minutes and then went off to meet up with his friends Josh and Krystal.
-having friends in common lead to spending time together in groups over the next few weeks until one night the cute boy in the yellow sunglasses was looking for someone to hang out with and I was the only one willing to shrug off homework. You see, I still hadn't lost my lazy ass tendancies.
-the rest, as they say, is history

There you have it. One long post about how breaking the rules for one hour drastically changed the path I was on and changed my life for the better and a bonus synopsis of how I met my husband, aka, the best thing in my life.

posted by Valarie @ 9:46 AM