Word To The Ys

Hi, Courtney…

You won’t believe this, but it’s me (well, you) writing…but now I’m 33.  Wow, how is that even possible?  As I sit writing this, I’m listening to you sing on a cassette tape, a recording format which has become pretty much obsolete by now.  But we don’t need to go into all of that, because I might cause a tear in the time/space continuum.

Never mind that I’m writing this letter on a blog, which doesn’t exist in 1996.  At least you sort of know what that new-fangled internet is.

There are so many things I want you to know.  That life is good.  That right at this very moment, at 19, you are living a life that you will look back on with such tenderness that you will sometimes ache to go back, for just 5 ordinary minutes. That the people you love now will be the people you love still at 33.  And that when you consider leaving Hamline in a few months (and you will) for other shores, don’t go.  Stay.  You’ll never be sorry you did.

Oh, and by the way…you’re not fat.  You’re not ugly.  You are beautiful and loveable and worthy of all good things.  I know you won’t believe me, though.

Don’t work so hard to be perfect.  In fact, work harder to be more imperfect.  When you look back on these days later, you won’t remember much about the papers you had to write for your education classes (which are, P.S., almost a complete waste of time.  But you will need that certification to teach, so don’t quit.)  What you WILL remember is the late nights spent in practice rooms, singing or otherwise showing your heart to those who will become lifelong friends.

At 33 you are married, with three children.  I’m sure that you can’t really believe that, because you think at this point that you’ll be unmarried with 20 cats and a studio apartment and stacks of English papers to grade.  Your life goes differently, but I don’t want to tell you any more specifics because, unlike a sci-fi romantic comedy I’ve just watched in 2010, I don’t like the idea of you knowing all that will happen before it does.  You have people to love and places to go without my guidance.  It’s all part of getting here, to who I am now.  And where I am is an excellent place to be.

You will never regret a single night spent singing Simon & Garfunkel or ABBA songs in your dorm room.  Don’t miss out on the chance to go against character and take that spontaneous trip to Chicago sophomore year, because important things will happen there.  Revel in a certain autumnal nighttime walk you’ll take next year; you’ll recall the smell and feel and magic of it all every fall that follows.  Tell people you love them when you know that you do, the minute you know that you do.  And then repeat it often, even if it embarrasses you or them.

You could maybe refrain from your junior-year hickey acquisition binge, though.  Yikes.

You’ve already learned by now the tough lesson that life is uncertain.  It will continue to be so.  All you can do is love often, and well, because I promise you won’t be sorry that you did, not ever.  Besides, it will give me lots to write about in my memoir when I start it next month.

Above all, keep singing.  Sing all the time…when you walk between classes, as you take a shower, in the dilapidated practice rooms whether alone or in good company.  Forget the impracticality of so many music classes and rehearsal hours when you’re supposed to be an English Ed. major…the singing is what’s keeping you sane.  You’ll need to know its powers later on, whenever you need to be healed or grounded or to feel truly alive.

So, in conclusion…be beautiful.  Be confident.  Be loving, and be loved.  Be bold.  Be crazy.  Be who you really are, to the fullest.  Be not afraid.

Life is magical.

Posted in Mostly Me, The Courtney Chronicles | 6 Comments »

Something big happened in the news this week, so today I’m going to attempt to articulate a deluge of emotions I’ve been feeling for several years now, since I experienced a messy break-up.

With Brett Favre.

Those of you not already in-the-know may be surprised to learn that this nouveau-hippie, artsy-fartsy blogger was raised a football fan.  Or rather, was raised in an NFL-watching household and later grew to love watching as well out of fear she’d otherwise be forgotten by the remainder of her family. (I jest.)  In college I really grew into a new appreciation for the spectator sport as it enabled lots of beer drinking and yelling.  It was cathartic in ways thereforto unknown to me.

The team I was reared to love is the Green Bay Packers.  My parents, both hailing from Wisconsin, and all the extended family as well are firmly Packers/Badgers people.  Just because we moved to MN as a family unit did not mean we could simply abandon our old allegiances because of geography!  For reasons not at all understood by me, it was acceptable for the MN contingent to become MN Twins fans.  Apparently baseball is immune from the accusations of treason.  Fortunately, in Minnesota there are many, MANY Packers fans.  And we live to give MN Vikings fans hell.

When I was a beer-swilling college-aged Packers fan, sitting on the littered floor of a cramped dorm room 2 feet from a teeny-tiny TV screen on Sunday afternoons, I found the love of my football-fan life.  His name was Brett Favre.  He was a beautiful thing to behold, and quickly became my quarterback boyfriend.  I could expound for hours on the things I found to love in him: his obvious joy for life and his calling; the excitement I found in his wild risk-taking; his skill in the sack. (See what I did there?  See?  Okay, at least I amuse myself.)  It didn’t hurt that he was charming and good-looking.

But by far the thing I admired most in my boyfriend was his loyalty.  He loved the people who’d taken a chance on him and given him his position.  He said, often and publicly, that he was going to be true to us forever.  That only when he was completely done with the sport altogether would he ever leave us.  So I found it easy to return that loyalty.  I purchased expensive tickets and travelled long distances to see him play.  I cried like a love-sick fangirl when he took the field.  I was the proudest (and perhaps only) fan who watched the 97 Superbowl win on a tiny computer screen in the darkest hours of the frigid Norwegian night.  The game started at 1:30 AM.  I might have stifled my exuberant yelps by biting my knuckles.

When Joe came on the scene, I extended my loyalty to the greatest team ever by recruiting him to our fan club.  I convinced him that an all-in-one-day trip to Lambeau (and back) with my brother and his bestie was the perfect high school graduation gift for Mark.  His indoctrination was such that he agreed and, being the only non-drinker, wound up having to drive our giddy, tipsy, tired butts home four hours in the middle of the night. We all count it as one of our favorite memories ever…even Joe.

We bought Favre jerseys.  I even read his wife’s odious book.

We defended him tirelessly to all the Vikings fans who dogged him.  We once had a lady coming out of the Metrodome tell us that she hated Favre, and hated us.  Just because we were fans.  I often wish I had that lady’s number so I could call her up and ask her how she’s feeling about Brett these days.

Because, as is the case in many passionate love stories, things did not turn out the way I’d envisioned.  Yes, Brett Favre did retire from the Green Bay Packers…after a couple years of dickering late into the training season as to whether he’d be returning for another year or not.  We’d all wait on tenterhooks for the verdict and breathe a sigh of relief when he’d consent to another season.  When he finally did retire, it seemed right.  But then, as the world is all too aware, he tried to “un-retire” his way back onto the team.  That was when he lost my heart.  It was a cheap move; trying to oust the new guy by appealing to the fans to whom he once swore to be true.  And when the management of the team said “no, thanks…we took you at your word when you sat in front of a zillion cameras and microphones and announced the end of your professional career and we’ve thusly moved on” Brett Favre did the unthinkable.

Now, playing for the Jets was the equivalent of your ex moving out-of-state and dating someone you’d never met, and who clearly was not as good as you were anyway.  You just felt kind of sad for him, though some anger over his bumbling of the end of the relationship remained.  You just shake your head, thinking how he could have gone down in history as the greatest player with honor, as a man of his word, but now has become something of a joke.

What came next is the truly unforgivable act…the one that’s had me harumph-ing and stuttering for two years now.  The thing that makes my more sane friends scratch their heads in bemusement when I am unable to form actual words to express my ire.  The ultimate betrayal:

THE VIKINGS?!?!?  How could this man have given, FREELY, his oath of undying loyalty to the Packers, retire, then turn around and UN-retire and wind up with our greatest foe?  This is the best equivalent I can offer: your husband, who swore he’d be with you until he made his final journey to the grave, dies, is resurrected, wants you back (but he’s a zombie!  So you say NO!) then goes to you frienemy’s house to hook-up.

And the ironic thing is, your frienemy (in this case, the MN Vikings and all their fans) have always made so much fun of your #1 Number 4.  They derided him endlessly to anyone who would listen, calling in to AM radio post-game shows to ramble on and on in whiny voices about how he wasn’t really that good, and why did everyone insist that he was?  Now the fans suddenly *love* him, want to spend the rest of their lives with him.  And all I can do is sputter in disbelief.  Oh, and I can also laugh when he does the very same pre-season dickering with them that he did with us for several years, and laugh when MN fans are all surprised by his retirement/un-retirement charades.

In conclusion: Brett and I are so totally over.  It has taken me all this time to come up with a somewhat coherent explanation of why I am so hurt and betrayed…but here it is, flaws and all.  Before I forever bury this subject, I have to share a clip from the Colbert Report the other night, which made me laugh so hard and perfectly captures my feelings on Brett’s retirement-go-round.  Enjoy.  And I promise not to talk about football here ever again.

Posted in Mostly Me | 4 Comments »