Memory Lane Monday: A Fair Fare-thee-well to Ye Olde Renaissance Faire, Also, Camels

You know that feeling when you write a post for your blog and then hit "save" instead of "publish," and then you try to fend off the stress and anxiety from the knowledge that you are moving across the country in 3 weeks and leaving behind everything you've known for the past 7 years by binge-watching Breaking Bad which just makes you feel shittier so then you try to cleanse your pallet by binge-playing Ni No Kuni and then the next thing you realize is you've gone an entire week without accomplishing anything? Yeah.

Boyfriend, our friend Jen, and I made our annual pilgrimage to the New York Renaissance Faire this year, probably for the last time. It was fun. I rode a camel! 
But, Faire felt different this year. Maybe it's grown stale for me since it's the same year after year, or maybe I was just melancholy that day, or maybe it was all the drunk assholes since they decided to add a Pub Crawl to the roster to boost sales but didn't think to boost security. I'm going to go with a little of all of the above. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Faire, but this year felt different. I still had fun, I rode a camel. I think I'm just blue about the reality of leaving NY.It was nice to be outdoors on a nice day and sort of push the stress of moving out of my mind for a few hours, but as moving day draws nearer, the stress bubble inside my brain grows and grows. But, I rode a camel, and that was awesome.

The first time I ever rode a camel I was 3 years old and it was at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. We were probably visiting my grandparents. I remember nothing about it except looking down from atop the camel to the ground. It was terrifying and fascinating and I felt a thousand feet high. I've had dreams and flashbacks to that moment staring down from the camel's back throughout my life. Yet I never really knew if these memories were real or just something I had imagined. I never knew until I rode that Camel at the Ren Faire, and I looked down from the camel's hump and felt the same feeling I had almost 27 years ago. It was a relief. Lately I've been questioning my own sanity and my ability to remember real things. I think it's just stress and anxiety and fear manifesting into me shutting things out. But being able to know that one very distinct memory of that camel ride at age 3 was not something I had invented, helped me feel sane and free for the 5-ish minutes adult me was on that camel. Thank you, Ren Faire.

So go out there and ride your camel!

I can conquer anything