My Vacation in Erie

L to R: Friend and ex-classmate Shawn, Jessica, Morgan, Me and Eric

I had a great trip, but it's great to be back in Kansas City! Especially since I am a nervous flyer and the snow on the ground in Erie, Pennsylvania made me worry we'd be grounded or worse. It was actually really surprising to me how much I enjoyed myself. Before I left, I was a bit worried to go back to Erie. After all, when I was leaving there, I thought I'd never be back considering I was separating from my husband and all his family is there. And, honestly, the bad memories of that relationship made me almost forget all of the great times I had there. But when my dear friends Eric and Jessica asked me to come out, I couldn't say no. Especially since Jessica is the girl I would totally ask to be my girlfriend if we still lived in the same city!

I am totally in love with this woman!

I found Erie surprisingly beautiful (how could I forget about all of those trees?) and my trip actually brought up all of my positive memories instead of the bad ones. Memories like having tons of friends party all night then sleep over so I could cook them a ridiculously large breakfast in the morning (it was great having a house when most people lived on campus!), or all those crazy hours long conversations my friends and I could get into about books and philosophy, or even just the memories of how delicately perfect my relationship with Jessica was even though I was scared of falling too hard and used to hold myself back.

It was also neat to get to talk to my favorite professor, feel like I've accomplished a lot since I was slogging through those English classes, and show him my Ulysses tattoo, especially since he's the one who convinced me to give that book a second chance after I ranted about how much I hated it my first read through.

Plus, I got to meet my Eric & Jessica's baby Morgan, named for Morgan Le Fay (god, I love literature dorks) who has got to be the happiest baby I have ever met in my entire life. I also got to see Eric play with his new band, Spike T Punch ("80s rock with a twist"), which was exciting since I consider Eric to be the most skilled guitar player I know.

An another unforeseen bonus of this trip was running into my friend Nigel who went to Penn State Behrend when I did, dropped out and is now back. I'd thought he was still in Virginia, so imagine my surprise when we were touring the new engineering building on campus and he just walked right up the stairs. Nigel is one of the most purely good people I've ever met and he's probably saved me from being raped at least once (I was a big partier back in the day). You gotta love a guy who will watch your back.

All in all, I felt like I recovered part of myself that I somehow left in Erie. I don't really understand how or why, but I feel so much more positive, powerful and confident. Maybe it's being able to see clearly how much has changed for the better in my life since I lived then. Or maybe it's just the reinforcement of knowing I have a much better perspective on life than once I did. Either way, I love it.

Did I miss anything neat while I was gone? Besides the whole light rail fail and Obama awesomeness, I mean.

Related posts:
I'm Back and Worse than Evar!
Being Zen on the Mountain

Like what you see? Subscribe here or add to Mixx