So, I have two enormous fears: rejection and heights. I know they're not terribly original, but there you have it. This weekend I had to deal with both, with varying degrees of success.
I think I've talked before about how much I enjoy planning parties and hosting them, but hate the part about inviting people because I am always convinced that no one will show up. In the past couple of years, I've forced myself to get over this and was even brave enough to plan my own birthday party, which falls over the Christmas holidays meaning that generally speaking no one EVER shows up. I was just starting to get over this fear, when this weekend happened. A few weeks ago, I went to a jewelry party and had such a good time I decided to host one at my house and invite all of my girlfriends over for a ladies night. *Cue ominous foreshadowy music*
I've managed to collect a respectable amount of lovely friends and quickly set to work notifying them of the event and sent out invitations early so there would be lots of notice. I invited nineteen girls. Of those nineteen invited FIVE SHOWED UP. Bless them, Becky brought three of her friends and another friend brought her teenage daughter, so it wasn't a ghost town, but still, it was a little mortifying when I'm assuring my jewelry party host that eleven people RSVP'd yes and were probably bringing friends and 30 minutes into the party only three people are sitting around listening to the crickets chirping.
And I swear, I'm not angry at my friends. I know things happen. Four girls were out of town, one is pregnant and had a back ache so bad she couldn't walk, one totally forgot (it happens), one's husband was leaving for a deployment the next day and she wanted to be with him for his last night home, one was getting her house prepared for an upcoming open house, one was running a marathon that morning and so on in that same vein. Point being, everyone who couldn't make it had an excellent reason, it was just... Ugh, I half expected to look down and realize that I'd forgotten to put on pants, it was that nightmarish.
Fortunately, I did manage to have a good time with the ladies who could make it, and I don't regret having the party. It'll just take me a while to psych myself up for trying it again. And probably some therapy. And a drug cocktail of some sort.
Then on Sunday, I gave in to Colby's request to go hiking at Mt. Rainier, mainly because he always so sweetly goes along with everything I want to do without (much) complaint. What he didn't tell me was that the hike was nearly two miles of VERTICAL paths, many of which overlooked vast drops into space at the bottom of which a rushing river would collect any hapless, trip-happy victims. And then, to really make it as horrific as possible, portions of the most treacherous passages were covered in slippery, not-fully-solid-all-the-way-through, banks of snow. SNOW!! In late JUNE!! Under the beating sun!
Our end-goal was Comet Falls, but in order to get to the falls I would have had to cross a snow bridge, covering a trail that was, I shit you not, about a foot wide with no margin of error to the left and nothing to hold on to on the right. Colby asked me if I would consider crossing it if I had a big stick and I laughed in his face. Then I started crying when I realized I would have to get back down the snowy slope we had just climbed and witnessed four hikers with sturdy walking sticks and sensible hiking shoes nearly plummet to their deaths.
So. Fun weekend all in all.
