Written 1/23/11
Considering that I’d come home about an hour before dawn, I really expected my family to lock me down for the whole day. Turns out, being employed has some serious benefits.
Mina texted me and asked me if I wanted to come to a Punjabi festival called “Lohri,” celebrated in her native state when the wheat fields begin to sprout in the winter. I figured it was worth a shot since I’d always wanted to attend an Indian festival so I asked and, by the grace of God and likely the human resources personnel at my hospital, my parents didn’t completely raise hell at the idea.
However, I’d previously bailed on hanging out with Ricky the day before so I wanted to hang out with him before I was due to go to Mina’s. Unfortunately, the Sister threw a hissy fit. Apparently, even though she asserted that she wasn’t going to do anything all day, she still had to take her sweet ass time getting ready even when she knew I was running late. That’s the one thing I can’t stand about her; she makes me feel like I’m somehow less than her, that her time is more important than mine and that I’m just an inconvenience in her little world.
Amusingly enough, my Mother makes me feel the same way.
Anyway, off I trekked, spending about ten minutes with Ricky before Mina called and told me to hurry my ass over to her place since we were going to leave about half an hour earlier. I apologized to Ricky, who brushed it off. I figure he’s probably very upset with me for bailing on him, but the attitude he gave was just…rude.
See, things come up. I love hanging out with my friends because I’ve known them all for a long time and I like holding on to those friendships. But there comes a certain point when you both decide that “We should hang out” and only one person (usually me) ends up having to make the trek to see the other person. I live pretty far away from everyone else, but none of them seem to take into consideration that seeing them takes time and money on my side too.
It’s always, “Wow, you live really far away. I don’t want to go out there.” Rather than, “I live pretty far away from you so you shouldn’t have to be the one to constantly make the trip.”
So getting the ‘tude from Ricky like it wasn’t trying hard enough to hang out with him was a pretty annoying gesture.
In any case, I ran off to see Mina and slipped into a Punjabi suit, which came off looking adorable before we packed into her family’s car and headed to the site of the party, an hour and a half away. Along the way, the adults of the car attempted to teach me some words to use for the evening, but I promptly forgot it once I got out…and felt the blistering evening cold.
…Granted, it was probably like 65, but it was still pretty freezing for someone who’s used to living in 80-90 degree weather.
The group got a fire going in front of this stage located in a shopping center and Mina and I huddled close before the show started in an effort to stay warm, managing to only warm up one side of our faces and her introducing me to people around us as either part of her religion, working with her father, or from her native state.
We watched the show, ate some food, attempted to get warm, and danced later on in the evening.
…Well, Mina danced and I stood back awkward attempting to mimic her occasionally while idly wondering if every person of the Indian ethnicity was hardwired to know the choreographed steps to every song that was played in the evening. I joined the group of people who got peanuts and popcorn to “feed” into the fire and tried not to walk out with my hair smelling like burnt toast. We kept shawls around our cold bodies and I found a tika in the bathroom that I decided to keep as a token of my evening. It is very pretty.
At some point, Mina confessed that she was glad I came along so that I acted as a buffer between her and a girl that she just did not want to see in the evening.
“Point her out to me.” I said. “I’ll trip her and make it look like an accident.”
“No!” Mina laughed. “…She already knows you’re with me.”
I could tell it really upset Mina that the girl was even breathing the same are as us and I completely empathized; having a few feuds of my own as a child and even getting older was made infinitely harder when you’re privy to sordid information. She handled it like a champ, but it was clearly something that shook her emotionally and mentally speaking. The fact alone that she kept up with the appearances for her mother’s sake and braved the evening despite how she felt made me feel a bit of a weakling for putting my exes on the “blocked” list on Facebook.
All in all, it was wonderful little evening.
Later on, we arrived back at Mina’s home around 1, at which point we changed out of our suits and into some really comfy pajamas and picked up a pizza and garlic breadsticks (My favorite!). We talked massive amounts of crap about people we’d known back in high school, leading to us talking and talking and talking and still talking until about 6 am about high school and everyone in our academy and every great memory we’d ever had of those people back in the day.
By the end of it all, we sat in bed, staring at the twin elephants facing us immersed in old memories about plays and counting how many classes we’d had with each other in the four years of high school. I found it comforting, to go through those memories and smile through them all, but Mina said that she felt a little freaked about diving into so many and so much of those old thoughts, like she needed to be reminded that it all happened years ago and didn’t really matter now.
And she’s right; those were all good memories, but they’re of a completely different time, place, and of people who don’t remotely resemble who they are today.
Wonder what they’ll look like in the next five years…
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