Traditions. We all have them. Whether they're personal traditions or family traditions. Traditions that we celebrate together or alone. We all have those things that we love to do and do them ritually. My family has a lot of traditions, some of which are nothing more but memories. As my siblings and I grew up, as family members moved and aged, our traditions warped, shifted, changed into new forms. Some died, others are barley there, and still others remain strong.
Growing up, there was a tradition in my home that took place every Sunday or Monday night. Two sports. Two seasons. And parents that us kids would sit down and watch both with. With my mom, it was football. With my dad, it was NASCAR. Both of which, I wasn't insanely fond of.
As a child, I use to get bored watching football and NASCAR. I didn't understand the thrill of chasing after a ball or driving in circles, but I learned the sports. Learned how to yell out at the TV and how to cheer on my favorites. For not caring much, I did have favorites, and my caring for the two traditions grew more as I aged.
Now, at 22, I can honestly say that I like one more than the other. And I can honestly say that I have my favorite team and racer(s). I now enjoy watching the games and races. But its not because I care so much about who wins them. It's because of the memories I have attached to them.
I watch the Superbowl every year. I couldn't care less about catching any of the other games, but that one is a must for me. Likewise, I try to catch the Daytona 500. Those two events were two of the biggest nights in my house growing up. Friends and family use to be invited over for them, and for the races that followed and games that lead up to them. With those gatherings, came those memories.
Like all children, I never thought about how such events could effect my life. I never thought about the memories I would take away from them.
Now, I do.
Today was the Daytona 500, one of the biggest races in NASCAR. Race cars and drivers hadn't been anywhere in my mind until my dad called and said he was watching the race. The sound of his voice as he talked to me about the race brought the urge to watch it. I couldn't remember the last time I had caught an entire race. I'm normally busy or forget about them. But I had time today and it was the Daytona 500...I had to watch it.
Due to a rain delay I actually got to watch last year's Daytona race as well as this years. Two races, two years, same day...and I enjoyed every second of it. Annoyed my roommate a little too, because I channeled my father. By that I mean that all those times watching him and his friends talk to the TV during races, wore off on me...and I found myself doing the same thing. At the end, I actually said, "Man, I sound like my dad." That's a good thing though.
When I think of my dad, I think Pepsi, Sega Genesis (Some of you reading this probably have no idea what that is...look it up, kiddies), Star Trek and Star Wars. I think calloused, grease covered hands, and shirts smelling like tar and anti-freeze. I think summer days in the garage. Nights kicking Sith butt on the Xbox. I think of the man who had to watch The Return of the King before us children in order to make sure it wouldn't scare us, but didn't flip out when I purposely set out to draw a reaction from him with a fake nose ring (By the way, that earned me a reaction from my mother...where I was threatened with being sent to Georgia...I don't blame her though, and actually found her reaction to be amusing. Sorry mom, but it was kind of funny!)
My dad and I have butted heads so many times in the past, but he's one of the most important people in my life. My dad taught me how to ride a bike...an event that lead to me zooming down a slopped sidewalk and fearing that I'd run into something. He taught me how to throw a bunch of random food together in a way that's wonderfully delicious...he taught me how to fix the chain on a bike...how to check the oil in a car...how to deep clean a house (that was a weekly tradition that all of us children dreaded but my mom and dad taught us to do...I still do deep cleaning on Saturdays because of it). And my dad taught me to never give up.
I have so many wonderful memories of my dad. I'm so lucky to have him as my father.
I've been homesick for awhile now. I've been counting the days until Spring break when I can pack a bag and leave this lovely city I'm in for the corn fields of home. Funny how I use to hate those fields -how I use to see them as a barrier -and now sometimes all I want is to see them again. Watching the Daytona tonight was a little piece of home.
For a while during the race, I just sat there thinking. I thought back to this one race I watched back in high school. I think it was in 2008 or 2007. I'm not sure. But I remembered sitting on the green couch that was in the living room of the house that I spent most of my life in, in front of the window. I can see it as perfectly as if it happened yesterday. Light was streaming in from the large picture window behind the couch, the green drapes were pulled to the side in the way that my mom liked them. The light created a glare on the TV, but I liked the golden puddle it left on the floor so I dealt with the glare.
My parents weren't home that day. No one was. I don't remember where they were. But I remember sitting with my math book open, and reasoning to myself that the race was more important than my homework. I remember thinking, "Dad'll want to know who wins." It was the first race that I think I actually completely watched from beginning to end. It was the race that I chose my favorite driver...Jimmie Johnson. I'd tell you why he's my favorite, but I don't think you'd understand. Let's just say I'm a fan of stories and that entire race was a story of him.
That memory is precious to me. Johnson won that race, just so you know, and his niece was born just as he crossed the finish line. I talked to the TV then too, but I don't think I thought about how much like my dad I had sounded at the time. Tonight, though, I did.
While I talked to the TV through this year's Daytona, and cheered on my favorites, I felt like I was at home again. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if my parents and siblings and friends were there. I mean my friends that I use to watch the races with. I do have friends here, in this city, (just to clarify), but I kind of miss the ones I grew up watching the races with. The ones that I use to talk with about how hot Johnson and Gordon were and how we wished they weren't married so we'd have a chance. The friends who I use to talk about how cool it would be to get into Pit row with and meet the drivers with. Those friends that can't really even be called my friends anymore because we're more like family. Like sisters or cousins. We grew up together. Our dads use to tell us how to read the racing stats together.
Then there were our moms. Our moms, just like our dads, are amazing. They instilled in us what I like to call the Pioneer skills. Those skills that all homemakers at one time needed. They taught us to sew, to do crafts, to participate in Church events (that was taught by our dads too. Church was a family thing), and use to tell us stories of the women's retreats they went on. As a little girl, one of the things I looked forward to was reaching the age where I could go to women's retreat with my mom. Sadly, I've only been able to go to one...but it was as amazing as our mothers described.
Like my dad, my mom's taught me so much. She's taught we how mark up my Bible, how to read, how to write, how to sew, how to fix a vacuum, how to properly set a table, how to be a lady. You know how I mentioned all those things that made me think of my dad? Well, when I think of my mom I smell vanilla and I hear Twila Paris, I see my mom singing along to A Warrior is a Child and driving me to quizzing, and teaching quizzing, and homeschooling me, and giving me my first journal, and reminding me to write in that journal, and going to my Track meets and my cheer leading events (with my dad,), and showing me how a record player worked, and dancing around the living room with my siblings and I to that record player, and telling my sister and I to stop spraying each other with the sink's sprayer. And as I remember sitting on my dad's lap as he read my favorite children's book series to me, Alice in Bibleland, I remember my mom kneeling by my bed and teaching me the Lord's prayer...and singing to me It Only Takes a Spark.
Theses are the memories that last. The memories that are important.
If you can't tell, I've been missing home a lot lately. I can't wait to get back to good ol' Nebraska. Even if it's only for a week. I think what I'm missing more, though is the past. I mean, yesterday I caught myself staring out my dorm window at an empty soccer field...but I wasn't seeing the soccer field. I was seeing a worn wooden eagle's nest, a chain link fence with morning glories growing up it, and an old burn barrel sitting by the garden gate that my dad had made for my mom's garden.
Maybe it's not home. Maybe it's not the past. Maybe what I'm really missing is familiarity. Someplace, sometime, that knew me as well as I knew it. Or maybe it's all three. I don't know. I just know, that this Daytona was needed for me. I needed the memories it brought up. The tears that sprang to my eyes when I thought of them. I needed that happiness, because -honestly -lately I haven't been very happy. I'm at a point in my life where I don't know where I should go from where I'm at. It's not a point of depression or sorrow...it's just a point where I'm trying to juggle all the stuff life throws at me so that I can make it past this step (schooling) and onto the next (graduation).
I don't know where to go from here in this post. Honestly, I didn't plan on making this post as personal as it's turned out. I try to keep the personal stuff in the pages of my journals. I suppose it happens though, and a personal one every once in a while isn't a bad thing. I guess, if any of you were trying to figure out if I was a human or not, now you have you're answer. I'm most definitely human, and I most definitely have memories. And I absolutely, positively, wouldn't trade those memories for the world.
There's a book I like, City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare, where some of the characters are forced to trade in a memory in which they were truly happy in, in order to save the world. If confronted with that decision, I don't think I could make it as quickly as the characters did. There's not a single memory that I can imagine giving up. Both good and bad. Theses memories are what keep me going when I get into ruts. They're what remind me that there are people out there that care for me and want to see me succeed. I couldn't part with a single one of them.
If any of you who are reading this, are the people in the memories that I mentioned today, I want to say thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for giving me such wonderful memories. Thank you for everything. Because, when the darkness threatens to consume me, it's memories like that which save me...which bring smiles to my face. So, thank you. And I love you. Each one of you.
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