Forget Zach. He doesn't call, he doesn't write. Even if he did start now, I don't think I would take him back. I'm sure I could have found him, but if he doesn't want to see me, then I don't want to see him either. Besides, I needed to focus on my art history class. Turns out history is even boring even when its about something beautiful, but at least I get to learn about lots of different artists and who they were and why they painted what they did. Van Gogh intrigues me for sure. But he died too young. Why do all the crazies have to commit suicide? Our world could use a little more color in it. I guess that's what Monet was for, though. I think he lived quite a bit longer, like 60 years rather than 40. Picasso was pretty nuts, too. He had to be to paint those weird shapes and stuff. But you've heard of all those guys. I suppose after completing an art history course with a B+, I should remember some more obscure names, but I really don't. There's no need to. Sometimes it can help to drop obscure names, but it's usually better to reference famous people who are actually famous.
Speaking of which, I was pretty thrilled that I got to meet last year's Miss America following my most recent pageant win. She was one of the judges and told me that I was clearly brilliant and that she knew I was going to destroy the competition as soon as she first saw me on stage. The way she touched my arm, I think she might have been interested in a little more than friendship, but I don't go that way, so I made sure to keep it platonic. Still, she was super nice and gave me lots of great tips. She seemed to think maybe I could compete in the big time, but I'm not sure I want to. I prefer to keep winning.
Speaking of which, I also pretty excited about the next pageant I have coming up. It's actually at the college, the one Zach goes to, where I took the art history course. I saved up enough money to take another course this semester so that I could still be considered a student so that I'd be eligible to compete in the college's first ever student beauty pageant. Anyone can enter for $10. The winner takes the whole pot. They're getting some random dudes to be judges. Ugh, dudes, I mean guys. Zach rubbed off on me too much.
But anyway, it's going to be a blast. These amatuers have nothing on me. I'm totally going to destroy the competition. And if Zach hears about it and just happens to show up to watch me compete, even better. He'll be reminded of just how much he missed out on after he dumped my ass.
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I was so happy that my son came home this past Christmas. But he seemed a little distracted. When I pressured him, gently of course, he admitted that he was a bit worried about his friend, Zach. Zach was dating a girl that my Brady thought was no good for him. My Brady is such a nice boy, and he has a really good intuition about people. I always liked his high school friends so much. Such nice boys. Most of them didn't go to college. They stayed home to help on the farm. But my Brady, he's not a farm boy. I love the farm, and I think Brady does, too, but my Brady, he has bigger mountains to climb. He's going to do great things one day. I just know it. And he's going to do those great things with all of his heart.
Even little things, like his concern for his friend, are truly great things. He's the best son a mother could possible ask for. And I try to be a good mother to him, too. I told him that he should be honest with his friend, maybe even be honest with the girl. He sighed and said he wasn't certain that was a good idea, and that he really shouldn't get involved. I told him that sometimes if you really care about someone, then you have to get involved. He glanced up at me from where he was sitting on the couch and just smiled. Yes, it was a bit of a condescending smile. As nice as my Brady is, I think sometimes he thinks he's too smart for his old mom. I know he was thinking about all my efforts to be a bigger part of his life. Brady never pushed me away, but he never became a mama's boy either. He was my oldest and only son and at first I wanted him to be so close to me he would never want to leave, but when he got that acceptance letter to college, I knew it was time to let him go, to let him be on his own. Sometimes you have to let someone go and figure things out on their own, but sometimes you have to step in and help if that person isn't helping themselves. That's what I told Brady, and I think he really took it to heart.
I don't really know what happened. Brady hasn't called me in a while. For the first several weeks after Christmas, he was calling me pretty regularly, but I haven't heard from him in the past few weeks. I hope he's okay. I'm sure he is. Sometimes you have to step in pull someone back when they're drifting, but other times, you just have to let them be, let them figure things out on their own, and know that when the time is right, they'll drift back into your arms all on their own.
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It's been a while since I gave my mom a call. Maybe I should do that. But it's late, and she's probably already asleep. Early to bed, early to rise is the true farm mentality. I wouldn't want to wake her up. Maybe I'll call her tomorrow, if I have time. Or even just a text. A text would be good. I could just say, "I love you, Mom." But then she'll think something's wrong. She'll call me all worried and ask if I'm in trouble or something. Oh, Mom, I'm fine. Sometimes I just want to tell you I love you.
I guess we'll see what happens in the morning. Zach and I were going to go to some sort of all day concert or something that he heard about. It's like some sort of post-Easter celebration and he claims the bands are going to throw chocolate bunnies out into the crowd. I don't know if he's just making that up or if that's a real thing. It doesn't sound like a real thing, does it?
You know what? I'm going to send my mom an Easter e-Card. I know its a week late, but I think she'll appreciate it. And since it's for an occasion, maybe she won't call me up all worried asking if I'm okay if I add a personal message of "I love you, Mom." Yeah, that seems like a pretty decent plan. Something with little chicks and bunnies. She loves chicks. The fluffy yellow things, I mean. She'll get a kick out of this.
-----
When I couldn't run track to release all my energy, I found the thing I most wanted to do instead was practice my piano lessons extra hard. I had just started taking lessons in November, so I wasn't very far yet, but I still had songs to practice, and when I practiced, I put my whole heart into them. Simple little ditties like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" were never played with such emotion.
Okay, so I don't really know how much emotion I was conveying, since I didn't like letting others listen to me play, but it felt like a lot of emotion to me. It may seem a little strange that I had absolutely no problem barreling down a track probably looking like a fool in front of hundreds of strangers but wasn't even comfortable practicing my piano lessons in front of my closest friends. Jamie asked a few times if I would play for her and I kept saying I would, but I needed to get better first. She told me she was sure I was great already, but I wasn't so sure. Bridget, thankfully, never even bothered to ask how my lessons were going. If she had, I would have told her that my instructor said I was doing quite well, but I thought she was just saying that to be nice.
Despite not having a ton of confidence in my musical abilities, I did feel that the track injury was certainly helping me to build those abilities faster than I otherwise would have. My morning workouts were reduced to some brief weight lifting, no running of course, and after that I would eat my breakfast and then go practice piano in one of the studio rooms. I didn't think anyone knew where I was, including Bridget. That was what made it all the more surprising when she suddenly burst in on me one Friday morning in the middle of my practice. I literally jumped off my seat and almost feel over when she rudely rushed into the room waving a flyer around. I felt a bit of pain shoot through my mending foot (which was one of those boot things at the time), and hoped I hadn't just injured it, but the pain passed as quickly as the moan I let out that Bridget didn't seem to notice and then I had turned to glare at her, which she also didn't seem to notice. She was much too excited about the flyer she had in her hand.
"Chris, you HAVE to do this!" she exclaimed.
Now I was pretty used to Bridget telling me about what I should do, but she was usually pretty good about not telling me I absolutely HAD to do something, so I figured this must be something that she knew I would actually want to do. I was pretty wrong about that.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A beauty pageant!" she exclaimed.
I nearly burst out laughing. I knew I was pretty, but I had never wanted to flaunt it. My looks made me think of my mother, made me honor her, and she never flaunted her beauty either, at least she never did based on the stories my father told me about her. It never even entered my mind to use my beauty to win some sort of prize or contest or something. It almost seemed like it would be making a mockery of who I was. "I'm not competing in a beauty pageant," I said resolutely as I sat back down and turned back towards the piano. I placed my hands over the keys, took a deep breath, and wondered if I could conquer my fears and start playing with Bridget was still in the room. While I was contemplating, she walked up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder, nearly making me jump again.
"Come on, Chris," she said. "It'll be fun. It's only $10 to enter and when you win, you'll get like $300."
I looked over the shoulder she wasn't touching at her. "Since when do you care about money?"
She sighed. "Okay, that's just an excuse," she said. "Really, I just think it would be good for you, boost your confidence, remind you of how great you are."
"You mean how good looking I am?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No, not just that!" she said. "Pageants are more than that. You have to be smart and talented, too."
I looked down at my foot. "My talent is injured right now," I said.
"This is exactly what I mean!" she exclaimed. "There's more to you than running track!"
"I know there is," I said. "But running track was my favorite thing."
"So maybe you should find a new favorite thing!" she said.
I looked behind me again. "I'm the one who's trying all kinds of new things here," I said, bringing my hands down on the piano keys to play a simple chord. "You're the one who just wants to party."
She sighed. "Yes, I know, you're right," she said. "But I want to change that, and I want to help you have some fun, some good fun, not my usual fun, and not be stuck in this rut I'm in."
"I'm not..."
"But you are! You totally are." She paused to take a deep breath. "Come on," she said. "Will you do this? For me, as a friend? I'll even compete with you. Not that I'll be much competition."
I shook my head and laughed. "Bridget, you are something else," I said.
She smiled. "Does that mean you'll do it."
I sighed. "Okay, fine," I said. "I'll do it."
"Awesome!" She let out a sigh of relief as she finally removed her hand from my shoulder. She turned around and I thought she was going to leave, but then she turned back and said, "I've never really asked how your lessons are going, but you sounded pretty good when I came in."
"Yeah, until you scared the crap out of me."
"Would you like to play something for me? Maybe you could practice something for the talent portion of the pageant."
"I don't think I'm nearly good enough for that," I said, "but I suppose..." I turned back to the piano and sighed. "Oh what the heck," I said. "I guess I can play something for you." And it turned out, practicing the piano with my friend in the room with me was not nearly as scary as I had thought.
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