Home.
I travelled to the place where I grew up this weekend for the first time since a wedding I was in two years ago. My parents moved back to where they grew up and the rest of mu family lives and I haven't had the opportunity for many road trips since I sold my Orange Pontiac Grand Am to avoid amassing even more parking tickets than I already had recieved from my friends at the CPD.
I drove down the streets where I learned to drive with surprising muscle memory, I ate toffee chip ice cream from my favorite ice cream place and I met the new baby one of my best friends just had (It was serious love at first site! And she is the most amazing mother in the world; she seriously brings sunshine into every day). I got to show my boyfriend where I took all the baby steps to become the person I am today. And I got to see the amazing paths and successes that my friends for life have moved into. One of my closest friends has an amazing fiancee and a house that they've put so much love and time into remodeling; their happiness is stunning and beautiful and infectious.
It was a trip full of smiles and love and the immense gratitude for the people that have loved me unconditionally throughout my whole life. It reminded me of who I was and how I got here, sitting in this bedroom in the city with its sunny windows and closet in the hallway in a neighborhood where I can walk to anything within ten minutes. It reminded me of long afternoons sitting with my mother in the kitchen of our old house, the hours I spent laboring over my thesis before graduation, the summers I spent with the top of my gorgeous candy apple red '72 Beetle convertible down and the radio blaring as I jetted off from place to place. It reminded me how much I've always wanted to do and made me pause to take a breath and reflect on all the things I have accomplished, muddled through, made.
Never forget to take a minute, a weekend, a day to just stop and appreciate your roots and smile at the awkward, bookish ten-year old you were and hope that she'd be immensely excited at the prospect of the woman you've become.
Kisses,
AJS
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