Bittersweet Celebrations...

Monday, July 14 8:30 A.M.
Tyler and Eric and I arrive at Disneyland, having taken the shuttle from our hotel. All of us are very excited as I haven't been since I was little and Tyler and Eric have never been at all. We eventually figure out the confusing lines and venture into Disneyland, not exactly sure where we are going to go. After exploring a little on Main Street, and driving on the Auto-Rama or whatever it was called, we venture our way toward Space Mountain, the only ride we are all sure we want to go on. On the way, we enter into Innovations, not really having any idea what it was. It is actually a futuristic museum of sorts, featuring upscale technologies. Tyler was very interested; Eric was anxious to get on his way. On the 2nd floor, we all kinda separate on our ways, exploring the different things, as you do in museums. After about 30 minutes of this, I seek out my brothers. I find Tyler, not Eric. After about another 30 minutes of thoroughly exploring the entire Innovations building, we determined that Eric was no longer in the building. I feel a mixture of irritation that he caused us to lose time looking for him, incredulence that he would be stupid enough to leave us at Disneyland, and worry that something had or would happen. (To be fair, he was only "stupid enough" to leave because he thought we left him first - but I'm just telling you how I felt!)

2:00 PM
After about four hours of Tyler and I trying to forget it and enjoy ourselves - all the while battling emotions of worry that he was not having fun or that something happened with increasing anger that he hadn't figured out how to freakin' call me on my cell phone and after several trips back and forth to "City Hall" where parents find their "lost children" although Eric didn't technically qualify at age 15...Eric finally calls us, apparently having borrowed some stranger's cell phone. He never did ask a security guard what to do, who would have directed him to City Hall where he would have found our twenty thousand messages (okay, one) message for him. When we finally connected with each other, Eric said that he thought we'd left at Innovations (I will never understand his lack of reasoning to LOOK in the rest of the building before making this conclusion), basically decided to just enjoy himself on his own, and announced he'd done everything he had wanted to do and he was done with Disneyland. Tyler and I just about punched him for this. Although we had gone on a couple of rides, we'd also spent a lot of time worrying and going back and forth to City Hall and waiting in line to talk to Security. We'd even gone back to Innovations at one point to make sure that we didn't miss him somewhere and he wasn't still there looking for us. So I basically told him that he just had to toughen it up, because we were going to stay for some time yet; Tyler wanted to watch the fireworks at 9:30. Previous to that point, I wasn't sure we were going to stay that long because we had a four hour drive back to Vegas and I had to work the next morning, but I think at that moment I decided to stay for it partly just to spite Eric. We ended up really having a good time for the duration of the day, although we were all exhausted (and they were quite sunburnt) by the time we finally left. Space Mountain is by far my favorite ride, although the Indiana Jones ride came a close 2nd - mostly because we ended up in the front row of our car and after a 45 minute wait it seemed all the better.

Tuesday, July 15 2:45 AM
We finally pull into my apartment complex after a four hour drive home. Tyler and Eric had conked out within minutes of leaving our hotel and I do not know how I stayed awake to drive the unfamiliar drive home. I've never been so reliant on the lines of the road - they were my focal point to keep my eyes open. That and a Disney CD I listened to and sang along with about 12 times. We throw all the stuff in the living room and I crash on my bed, trying to ignore the fact that I have to get up in four hours.

5:30 PM
After a somewhat long day at work that I struggled to remain alert for, I come home, determined to eat dinner and go to bed early. I routinely get my mail before walking into my apartment, and discover a cardboard white envelope from Marylhurst University. I yell in excitement to my sister I am on the phone with that I got my diploma and as I walk toward my apartment, receive congratulations from neighbors who overheard my not so quiet musings of celebration. By the time I get to my apartment (couple buildings from the mailbox) I'm awake and decide we're going to celebrate. After a dinner out with my brothers and my friend Serriah, we go to Wal-Mart for the sole purpose of obtaining a frame suitable for my newly acquired Diploma officially signifying the first College Graduate of my family. :) Even though it's Wal-Mart and I went there for the low prices, I get the 2nd most expensive document frame because it's cool, and hey, it's my diploma - and it is a frame that has two glass panels that the document floats in between, thereby creating a "matting" of glass.

8:30 PM
We arrive home and although I'm just about ready to crash and go to sleep, I decide to frame my diploma first. I sit on the floor, carefully undo the frame and set aside the first glass panel on the bunched up blanket next to me so that I might put my diploma in the frame. I get up to get some tape to secure the diploma to the glass, carefully step around the glass to get to my closet, miraculously quickly find my tape in my very messy "junk shelf" and head back to my frame.

CRUNCH.

After a few seconds of sleepy unawareness of what had just transpired, I look down at my foot which has just effectively turned the one glass panel sitting on the blanket (that just moments before I had remembered to step around) into dozens of pieces, throw my tape across the room and say something to the effect of "What the heck did I do that for? I'm so stupid!" My brothers seem frozen in time, looking at me with concern in their stances, although silent as they know not what to say, and remain in that position until I clean up my mess and state simply, "I'm going to bed."

After crying on the phone about what I had just done (I was very tired) to my friend Heather, I return my friend Brian's call and relate the story to him as well. He appropriately gasped in all the right places and made me feel infinitely better by asking, "Was your diploma under the glass you stepped on??!?" Suddenly breaking a glass frame did not seem so symbolically stupid as if I had ruined my diploma 3 hours after receiving it, and I feel better.

Saturday, July 19 10:30 AM
Now it is several days later, and although I have caught up on sleep (although still feeling quite tired this week) and even went to the store yesterday to buy myself a Graduation present (not on purpose, I went to go buy Season 10 of Friends because my brothers have been watching the series and the library is taking too long to get it to me and they leave in a couple of days --- but I ended up buying the whole series because I have been wanting to anyways. 10 minutes later I felt a twinge of regret for spending that money that I don't really have, but appeased my regret by deciding it's my graduation present to myself, although technically I bought myself a graduation present (to see Stomp) when I walked at graduation last year. Still. I'm official now.)

Anyway, I still have not bought a replacement frame to frame my diploma. Wonder if I'm scared to do so. :) Of course, I just didn't think about it while I was at Target last night. Oh well. I'm an official college graduate in Music Therapy, even if my apartment wall doesn't signify as much yet. Yay for me.