Kim Priore

So…funny thing…I was really excited to be done with my finals.  I mean REALLY excited.  The volume of work I accomplished in the past 2 weeks surprised even me, and let’s face it, I don’t usually impress myself.  But man that was a lot of work.  So now I have this giant question facing me: now what?  Once again I am confronted by the fact that I tend to define myself by what I do, no matter how many times I think I’ve learned this lesson.  But without the stress and the workload and the papers and the deadlines, what am I?  I’ll tell you one thing, with too much spare time I tend to get lost inside my own head.  I learn a lot more about myself, but sometimes that’s scary.  (Let’s face it, I’m scary – just ask the drunk guy who tried to hit on me at the Burren last night.  Yeah thanks buddy, I really wanted to be your 4th choice.  Every girl’s dream.)  Things I’ve (re)learned, just in the past couple days:  1) Friendship and love are really more about listening than anything else, because no matter how hard I try I can’t protect the people I love from getting sick or getting hurt.  2) Your birthday is not always about you.  3) Just because someone says yes to hanging out with you, doesn’t necessarily mean they want to hang out with you.  4) Just because someone says no to hanging out with you, doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to hang out with you.  5) The early years of the West Wing are some of the best tv ever produced, and their greatness will never be paralleled again.

For the Will Ferrell fans out there, that subject heading should be read like, “Presidenting is haaard.”  But seriously, I’m up to my eyeballs in papers and take-home finals and the like, and it’s easy to lose perspective.  I’m like, I signed UP for this gig?  And I’m PAYING it for it?  Like, A LOT??? 

I guess because I wanted to go back to school for so long, we have a tendency to idealize things…ok well I do anyway…and I do love it and I’m really really grateful for the opportunity, but I think part of what made my undergrad experience so phenomenal was the amazing women I went through it with.  And I made a conscious choice this time around that I wasn’t up for being a joiner in the HDS world…I have my friends, my family, my church etc, and that doesn’t need to change.  But in the middle of the night it’s still kind of lonely here with just my books and nobody to make IHOP runs with. 

So anyways – by way of reminding myself where I’ve come from, a verse from Maya Angelou (look up the whole poem, it’s amazing) that we read at my Wellesley baccalaureate:

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

So this weekend blew my weekend at the KSG ID conference away, I’ll tell you that right now.  I went to the Boulders Resort in Scottsdale, AZ, in honor of my friend Alli’s 30th birthday.  It was fan-friggin-tastic.  For my 30th birthday, I hope to get…socks.  A book of some kind, perhaps.  I don’t know.  I’ve still got a year to figure it out.  At any rate, Alli is one of my oldest and dearest friends, who managed to stick with me from my days as a wide-eyed naive Christian firstyear at Wellesley until I was a bleary-eyed jaded Christian senior at the same place.  And she managed to remain cool the whole time.  She also managed to remain cool while dating and marrying her high school sweetheart, becoming a mom, moving around the country, etc etc.  Any number of these points are the point at which most other friends tend to drop off the radar.  They get hopelessly distracted by anything with testosterone, can’t multitask, whatever.  But Alli’s a rock.  Perhaps this is why the Boulders was chosen as the location for celebrating 3 decades of Alli.  Perhaps it was just a happy coincidence.

We managed to surprise her (which surprised the rest of us, because it’s hard to get anything past her) and have a fabulous weekend of being pampered while the guys played golf, stuffing ourselves obscenely full of delicious food (another time-honored Kim and Alli tradition) and being captivated by her charming 10-month old, Sophia.  (In addition to her other attributes, Alli has a knack for making beautiful children.  I guess Mark helps.) 

Anyways I was nervous about meeting new people and being out of my element, but I should have known that Alli’s friends and relatives are almost as cool as she is, and funny too, and the guys are manly men who do things like make fire and hunt bobcats.  I guess.  I’m told.  Anyways, fab weekend all around and mad props to Big Z in the Sky for footin’ the bill.  Can’t wait till Alli’s 31st, here’s hoping it’s a tradition.

Meanwhile, coming back to reality (there’s a song in there, if you’re old like me) is a biatch.  I am hopelessly behind on school, work study, life decisions, laundry, and all-around emotional health.  Marsha!!!!