quiet awe

Ok, so I've fallen off the wagon with Project 365, but making yourself blog every single day is really too much. I think, as with everything else, I just need to find a balance. I want to blog much more regularly than I was before, but there's no need to do it everyday. I have a life, after all.

So last night, I drove to San Antonio on a whim to watch the meteor shower. I did not have to do it there, but a.) I didn't want to go traipsing off to the country in the early a.m. hours by myself, and b.) I was going to meet up with a friend in Corpus, but the forecast there wasn't as good, so San Antonio it was.

Lately, I haven't been as spontaneous as I used to be. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think there's something to be said for having a little bit (but not too much!) structure in one's life and doing wild, crazy things all the time. When I was doing that stuff, most of the time, I was having a lot of fun, but I was also really unhealthy. And after awhile, it's not even so fun anymore. I don't need to stay out till 4:00 in the morning for no good reason and then feel like crap for the next few days. I just don't. I mean the "just because I can" thing has gotten really old. I'm not 18 or 21 anymore. I feel like I definitely lived up those times in my life, and even though I fully plan to keep having awesome adventures that I hope will only get better with time, you just can't live like that forever.

That being said, what was cool about last night--well, the meteor shower in itself was pretty cool, so what was EXTRA cool about last night was that I DON'T do stuff like this all the time anymore, so it was even more fun. I planned it right too. I took a nap after work, drove to SA around dusk, stopped by my friend's place where we gathered essentials, picked up a couple of other people, and drove around outside the city till we found a nice dark place to park and look up at the stars. Before last night, I think I could probably count on one hand the number of shooting stars I've seen in my lifetime. Not anymore. It wasn't exactly like those photos you see where it just looks like there are comets raining down from the sky (I wish!). But we did see one or two every few minutes for a couple of hours, and it was fun to just gaze up and hope you caught the next one. It was a quieter kind of awe-inspiring experience.

And of course, in the meantime, it was nice to just be among good company, having real conversations with no electronics, no bar scene, nothing commercial, not even in view of the city. I'm tired today, but I'm definitely glad I went, even if it was too dark to capture a meteor in a photo. I guess that would've ruined the no-technology part of the evening anyway. It's nice to take advantage of these moments when they come along without running around like a chicken with your head cut off chasing them down.