Feeling: nostalgic
Listening to: bells
Reading/Watching: homework

This year's drive to an from RenFest featured reminiscing about past years that mon coeur and I have shared this little annual tradition.

The first year, 2002, mon coeur and Satan wanted to go to a ShadowBane convention (six years later, I am still in the dark about what the appeal was), and it was being held at the Texas Renaissance Festival. Bri, deeply smitten with Satan at the time, offered to drive them, and asked me to come along. Then she changed her mind and decided to go to a horse event instead, breaking the boys' hearts, until I thought they might settle for letting me drive them. I wasn't a vivacious blonde in a bigass truck, but I shyly proffered my bouncy little Nissan as transportation. Quincy came along, too, not for the convention, but apparently for the chance to hit on me, which (given my circumstances of rebounding from my veryfirstboyfriendeverzomg) worked out for him (at least... until February).

2003, I'm single again, I'm deeply smitten with Satan at the time (because I'm just that stupid), and I go with just mon coeur and Satan, because Quincy had been distant since the breakup, and whenever we spent time alone he would talk about getting back together and thanks, but no. We have a good time, mon coeur buys his garb, and I'm aghast at how much he spent, but I have no right to speak up (being neither mother nor girlfriend), so I don't. He's a dumb boy with too much money, but he's a sweetheart and a good friend and why doesn't Satan love me? I am trying so hard to be lovable.

Fall 2004, and mon coeur and I were silly and very new. We went as a foursome with Satan and his new girlfriend Persephone, and good times were had by all, even though just about everyone came down with a vicious cold by the end of the weekend. Mon coeur augmented his garb, and talked about getting some for me. I didn't let him, because I would never be quite that geeky, right?

The year of our engagement, 2005, we went alone, and bickered about wedding plans half the time. Then bought things for our wedding the other half of the time.

2006, everyone wanted to help us celebrate our status as newlyweds. So much hugging and free drinks galore. Yay for that. We went home tipsy from mead, just after the fireworks.

2007, I had just begun my teaching job, and money was tight, and time was low, so we didn't go. There was a collective gasp in the universe.

This year we were happy to return, and I realized that it's not the festival I love any more; it's being there with him that I love. For the majority of my life, I lived an hour or so from this huge Renaissance to-do, and would go with friends or family and it was no big deal. But if I went back again, without mon coeur, I would feel strange. Strange, and wrong. It has become such a thing that we do, together, even if we wind up doing a lot of the same things over and over, that going by myself or with a group of friends would seem like a crime.

This year, I had a bad cold and a too-tight corset and my handy-dandy ulcer, which comes in Travel Size, and I was miserable, but I was happy. Because RenFest is something we share together, year after year.

I think, if I ever lost him, I wouldn't be able to go back. I wouldn't necessarily miss the Festival, because I've gone enough times to know what it's about (buying things, eating weird food, and spending lots of money), and I practically have the show dialogues memorized, but I couldn't go again, ever. It's our place. It's part of the "us" that we've spent so much time building. And that, more than anything else, is the reason we keep going back.

Right now, we really need to keep all the moments and traditions that make us who we are, and who we were.

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