This Day in History

It was one of those days.

An unfortunately bad day. More like a very long series of bad days, like a few months or so. The kind of days that smack you in the face and make you wonder what in the world happened, when did this all happen, how could I have been so blind... And July 9th came to a head. It wasn't like that Monday was particularly worse than any other days. It was a little bit worse but not incredibly worse but I was spent and done and tried and tired. So I blogged about it. 

And I shut myself in the cool dark basement and watched some show about people in New Jersey but not the one you think and I let myself not be happy that day, because it was one of those days. 

Some gentlemen suitors had spied this particular blog post and set out to do something about it. That healed the day a bit. And my favorite meal for dinner healed the day.

But then my family took a hike on a beautiful trail. I didn't know such a beautiful place was so close to my home. And as my family and I ran through the mountains laughing and talking, I let my imagination run a bit too, and for a bit, I thought that things were going to be ok. Because though bad stuff had happened, it was kind of like ripping off a bandaid. If you keep the bandaid on too long, the ouchie (preschool scientific vocabulary) would not get all the way better. That's how it is. So the bandaid had been ripped off and then all the bad days followed and like ripped off bandaids, it hurt like heck, but you knew it was going to get better. And that's what my imagination told me.

And that night someone picked up their phone and called me while I was in the mountains. As mountains do, I had no signal, so I didn't get the call until we'd made it down the mountain and to an ice cream shop. I listened to the message a bit and wondered about how my voice sounded on the recording too. Whoever called had the patience to listen through it, so it couldn't be that bad. (I'm famous for disliking the sound of my own voice, but talking enough that you'd think otherwise.)

"Hey, Lara, this is Joseph Bécar, um. You gave me your number and anyways, I thought I'd call you and see if you want to get together some time... So call me back and... yeah. Bye."

I'd never heard that voice before. But I heard it say my name and liked it, so that was something good.

It's astonishing how things can change from bad bad bad enough to write "I hate today" so many times, to suddenly becoming a life changing adventure, the best summer of your life. It's astonishing how that can happen over night. And how after a series of only ok dates, you can come home smiling and wishing there was more time. And how after walking around with feet made out of bricks one day, you can wake up the next with your feet hardly touching the ground. Isn't that interesting?

But I met a boy that day.