Those Five and the Next Five

Those five years were fabulous. I love the learning experience (miss it immensely!) and the good company. Majoring in art was incredibly difficult. I am artistic, but not a natural drawing/painting talent. It was frustrating to sit next to people who could put a single line on paper and it looked like art. I agonized over every line and stroke. I didn't know what I was doing and even though I waited four years to go to college I still didn't know what I should be doing. And actually, I'm not entirely sure I know now.

Love was in my blood in college. Falling "in love" with the fellas, with the books, with learning, with art. Loving life and the thought of the world being open to me. Very heady stuff.

In some ways those years were also agonizing, having self-doubt, wanting to change majors sometimes, the stress of the workload and working to support myself. Horrible professors at times. The boring classes that had nothing to do with anything I wanted to do. Depression at not being as good as I thought I could be.

I applied for the specialized degree program and was accepted after my work was juried by the professors in my department. There were three of us that applied at the same time. Two made it. I overheard the last girl being rejected and felt horrible and relieved at the same time. The acceptance created an additional year for me to stay in school. I never felt like an artist, though, and worried that someone would discover I was not.

After going through some delightful boys and some not-so-delightful boys I settled on one, graduated and went to work as a designer for a gift company. I designed stationery and apparel for a couple of years then had a brief break with reality at which time I decided to break all my ties and run away to California.

There I worked with computers doing freelance researching, writing, web design, project managing. Basically a mercenery brain-for-hire. I loved those years as well despite the hard knocks I got for it. I remember telling someone (probably Shannon) before I left that it might be a mistake but I was doing it anyway because it would turn out okay in the long run. I do that a lot.

For a very long time I was involved with someone defective and brilliant who is an excellent example of walking that fine line between genius and insanity. Depending on how well you know him is where you think he is on that line. The more I knew him the farther he seemed to stray over into the foggy shadows of craziness. And we'll leave it at that (and hope everyone else leaves it at that too).

But the California years were more GOOD than bad and, again, an invaluable learning experience. With that came self-sufficiency, a love for self-employment, discovering so many strengths I didn't know I had. I'm psyched to run my own business and be good at it. California is a beautiful state and I'm so fortunate to have my time there.

I met my husband there and we married after knowing each other a couple of years and finally after his stressful job became too much and we got tired of the high cost of living out there (and the rolling blackouts), we thought how cool it would be to play frontier family and move back to my home state of Arkansas.

We're in the process of taking over the family business here. For half of what we were paying in California, we can afford to own a home AND six acres of lakefront property where we plan to build eventually.

But it's a strange, circuitous route from starting here, going there, having all these different jobs, coming back here and ending up in real estate which is something I never had a desire to do. Oddly enough I found out I'm good at it, so it turned out just fine.

AND, we have little munchkin added to the family, a sweet angel boy that couldn't be more perfect if I'd sat down and made a wishlist to have him created from scratch. Someone joked about how he needed a sister and I thought... there's no way I can top that. No way in the world.

I think it was probably my junior year in college Ginny gave me a copy of the Tao te Ching, a very good translation by Stephen Mitchell (which I still have, Ginny). I was tense and controlling and making not only myself miserable but probably everyone around me feel pretty much the same way. The best message I got out of that book was about letting go. When I let go and stopped trying to make things always be exactly as I thought they should... those were the moments when things worked the absolute best way they could. It was like magic. I don't understand the how or why of it, but it's one of the best lessons I learned.

So, I try not to fret excessively. It's like natural prozac or something -- free, and it also doesn't mess up your health insurance coverage.

This morning my mom asked me how I was going to manage my next big hurdle, and I told her I wasn't sure, but I'd figure it out along the way. She said, "You just jump in and then make it work out, don't you?" And I said yes. And she said, "That's what I always did." (So, insanity really is inherited.)

Shannon's View

After traipsing the world as the daughter of a Foreign Service officer, I was superficially planted along with my parents and two siblings in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Not sure what I wanted to do – try my hand at becoming the next super model, break into the Ivy League set at Princeton or pretty much nothing, I opted for the later and enrolled in the university in town. My parents lived three minutes from campus, but we all agreed I needed the freedom which living in a dorm afforded. (Now, I know they just wanted me out of the house!)

I had one heck of a first year – made a 4.0, fell in love and rebelled in ways I never imagined. It was my second year of school that I met Ginny and Wendy, though I have no recollection of how we began or even transformed into these parts of a whole. It seems we have always been… drawn by our differences, tied by our common core.

I think it was my ever-present longing for things beautiful and rare that shone light on the loveliness of Ginny and Wendy:

Ginny with her masses of dark curls and the naturally rosiest lips I’ve ever seen. Eyes of curiosity and a mind that reaches beyond my imagination to distant times in the past and future. Goofy and comfortable in her skin. Natural and adventuresome. Accepting and versatile. Laughter.

Wendy, a woman from another time, who I’m quite sure was the object of life-changing affection from a medieval knight of the roundtable. Disarming tiger eyes and orange-roped hair. All curves and softness of a Titian masterpiece, and strength and courage of a frontier maiden. Amazing diverse talent and vision. Headstrong and elitist, but unwaveringly loyal.

I’ve always thought them simply wonderful and considered myself the lucky one in the group.

Ginny was so committed to her study, I relished the opportunity to barge in to her room and keep her from being so productive, plus she had a computer and also a refrigerator that was always stocked with cold Diet Coke. Pink Floyd and Indigo Girls in the background, we spent a lot of time curled on the beds wondering about life and decisions along the way. She particularly hated that I would put my feet on her pillow…

There was one moment, so inconsequential that has stayed in my mind. Ginny’s parents had come in for some event. We were on the elevator going up to our floor. Ginny was in a dress – gasp – and looked the most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen anyone look. It irritated me so to see her like that – the ease and comfort I found in her grounded-ness was gone and I hated it.

Saturday mornings, Wendy was like a siren calling from the ocean. I would wake up to her singing and the haunting strains of the hammered dulcimer. I loved to float down the hall and watch her. Even amid piles of clothes and yesterday’s school papers layering the floor, she transformed the air into a misty hillside in Ireland.

There are so many memories of vibrant living during that time –we were so tentative, but hopeful, believing in each other so much more than in ourselves. We have been changed much by life since then, but still have that same love for each other… the kind that lasts forever.

Ginny-beginnings

All beginnings are hard and so it was with beginning undergarduate at the University of Arkansas in 1988, with the fire drills, sharing bathrooms, the cafeteria, and the nutty social dynamics of dorm life. I was a physics major and thought I knew what I wanted and where I was going. Boy did things turn out different than I had planned. I am from Texas but both my parents had grown up in Arkansas and Missouri and I had relatives spattered all around Fayetteville. It was a grand time, full of new experiences, new discoveries, many epiphanies, and lasting friendships.

The unfettered coyotes:
I met Wendy during one of the countless fire drills and we became fast friends, sharing many wonderful conversations. I have a poor poor memory, but the memories I have of Wendy include riding around in her beat up old green gas guzzling car and the time when we saw a very sweet little bird sitting near her car as we were parking one day and how she said, "Awe, how cute" then turned to me and said "let's kill it!". . . I remember her long red hair, her dulcimer, and her beautiful singing voice and how she hated for me to sing to the Fine Young Cannibals. Shannon I encountered a bit later. She was (still is) an ornery spirit, chocked full of energy, and always planning some fun adventure. The times with her I remember include a trip to the park in the back of a pickup flaunting a condom for no apparent reason and grinning mischievously. I also remember how every single male followed her with their eyes at every restaurant the three of us went to . . . and not more than once, having our conversation interrupted by the advances of one of those young men, only to be turned down by our lovely girl as Wendy and I rolled our eyes at one another. The three of us spent a good deal of time sitting around in one of our rooms (usually mine since it was the neatest, to my surprise!) where we would talk and laugh and enjoy our days together.

My trajectory:
I spent two years in the physics program at the University of Arkansas. I more enjoyed my history classes and playing the violin in the orchestra than physics (and all that damn math). I had decided to transfer from the U of A when 30 scientists, including several physicists, left due to lack of funding. It took just a few months after my transfer was in motion for me to realize just how much physics and I were not compatible. For one thing, I wanted to be out of doors and physicists spend a lot of time in doors. In fact, I was sitting in a lab, learning about AC and DC current staring out the window when it dawned on me that I would forever be in such surroundings. After I transferred to Texas Tech University, I spent another three years in school, changing my major to a double in History and Philosphy (I love Philosophy) until I discovered, at the end of my fourth year, that I wanted to be an archaeologist. I dropped philosophy and graduated with my History degree with a minor in Anthropology, Philosphy and Math. I spent the rest of my years until now in Archaeology, three years working in the field and eight years in graduate school.

Wendy Wades In...

Well, like the prow of a ship, I guess I will part these waters. It was my hope that our extrovert, Shannon, would start, but it looks like destiny has something else in mind.

I will relate my part of the tale as accurately as I can, but bear in mind it comes through the Wendy-filter and who knows what kind of bizarre skewed mess that makes of reality.

The story begins around 1988, about four years after I had graduated from high school. I was a late college bloomer and had spent some time working before I figured out what I really wanted to do. First generation college student. Secondary education was not a high priority in my family. I decided to major in art (sort of silly in retrospect) and proceeded to enroll at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

I had no idea what I was doing, where I was going, didn't get the whole college thing since I didn't even have any friends who had been to college. I thought it would be easiest to just move into the dorm, although I felt sort of stupid since I was older than most of the Froshes around me.

Reid Hall is where I met "the girls", met them independently from one another. Ginny I met during a fire drill. She and I lived on the same floor. We're all sitting out on the grass waiting for the okay to go back in and I'm standing around like a goober feeling really out of place. I hadn't been living there very long -- couple days maybe? I saw Ginny sitting on the grass and I knew I couldn't bear just standing there by myself anymore since most everyone was talking to someone. She was sitting with a group of people and she looked very non-intimidating. She looked least likely to think I was an alien. (Little did I realize then what a weirdo she actually was.)

She and I were friends first. Shannon came later, although she was always there, like the air, like the mist, like clouds in the sky.

We all lived on the 8th floor, all women, all single rooms, no roomies! I had a corner room, Shannon's room a few doors down from mine, Ginny's was on the other side of the hall, about halfway between us.

Shan was the white-haired girl that everyone knew by sight, but nobody "knew". She carried a shoulder strap purse that bounced on her hip when she did her "model walk". (She's going to hate this post, I'm sure. Oh well.) She and I had an art class together and before we were friends she used to aggravate me because she always came to class late because she was too busy stopping at the student union to get frozen yogurt. She'd do her projects the night before they were due and fling them together and get an "A". I agonized over mine for a billion years and was lucky if I got much better than average. I was filled with bitterness over it all!

At the time she seemed SO not my type of pal, but eventually we became such close friends. I don't even remember how.

What a fabulous life we had together. So many years of memories and wonderment. I'm not even sure I can properly express how valuable that time was to me. We lasted a few years until Ginny was the first to leave. She transferred to Texas Tech against our protests. And then... I can't remember who left next -- I think Shannon graduated before I did and went on her way. My degree took five years because I was in a specialized program.

I started college so petrified, feeling really out of place. I came out of it wiser, more courageous, calm, eager to learn, open-minded, free. I discovered falling in love and falling out of love. I experienced the hard knocks of living in the world on my own (horrible little things like small claims court, burglared cars, oil burning vehicles, stalkers, creepy dates and learning to keep house).

And I was lucky enough to do it all with those two girls at my side -- sometimes keeping me out of trouble, but actually more often than not, getting me into trouble. (To be fair, it was mostly just Shannon. Ginny was a very good girl!)

The years that followed got proceedingly stranger and stranger as life progressed and where I am now is where I never thought I would be. But isn't that the way it is for most people? And certainly tales for another day, after the girls have shared their versions of The Beginning.

Don't we need another hobby?

Welcome to the flagship blogging madness of "Three Girls Grown Up". We are three "former college girls" who have been friends for... eons, I guess. We made it through school (well some of us did, some of us are STILL IN SCHOOL) and are navigating/fumbling our way through life as adults.

We miss the days of sitting around curled up on the couch babbling until all ours, hands cupped around hot tea, cocoa or whatever. Long days sitting in the porch swing, road trips, truth-or-dare, just being together and basically just BEING.

This is our way of doing that despite being scattered to the four winds. Thanks for joining us!