I was feeling really homesick yesterday. I almost cried looking through old pictures, and that says a bit because I don’t cry very often.

I love where I am, I do want to start by saying that. My home is here because the loves of my life are here. I love our home. I would keep this home even if we won the lottery, just because I feel a connection to it. These walls whisper beautiful stories of the love here– the babies who learned to crawl and babble, the boy who went from child to mancub, the husband that spilled sweat and blood into remodeling. I don’t ever want to leave, this home or Colorado, and I’m quite happy to imagine myself living here forever. I’m humble. I don’t need more.

But when I look through old pictures, I remember.

I talked to my sister-in-law recently who was also a Southern Belle and moved here not exactly understanding the depth of what leaving there meant. She doesn’t want to move back. Neither do I. What I mourn is that I can’t leave and go back to that and yet keep what I have made here, and by that I don’t mean the material things we’ve acquired. It would never be the same. Seven years and 2000 miles have changed everything.

And that makes me sad and happy, because life has been beautiful these 7 years yet I’m homesick and longing all at the same time.

I talk to Jeremy about it ALL.THE.TIME. He’s so sweet and understanding, but I don’t think he really does understand. His family is all here. Everyone that he had a connection to as a child are within an hour’s drive. He thinks it’s silly that I miss family that never cared then, thusly making it so easy to go. But I was 24! I wasn’t in the healing/depthful/thoughtful state of mind then. My indifference to my family had as much to do with me as them. I just wanted to go. If I could go back to the 24-year-old me and whisper a secret into my own ear that would change my choice, would I? No. I’m here because this is where I was lead. And I simply have faith that one day this place will grow on me, or that I’ll better understand why I’m here.

When we moved here, I didn’t care about leaving behind my folks, my kin, my family. But now I look at old pictures of those faces I loved, and I mourn not being closer to them to heal and try again. I’d love to jump in my car and drive a few hours to see my Grandaddy and MeMe, my dad, my grandmother, my sister, my niece, my cousins. I wish they could know me as an adult, and I wish I could know the changes they too have made.

I want to be able to visit once a year. I need to have a connection to that place. I think that would help this feeling. Seems easy enough a goal, but it just isn’t so simple. There are many obstacles. So I send prayers upward.

My grandpa sent me these pictures from my mom & dad’s wedding in 1974 last year. It was so spontaneous and thoughtful that I cried when I opened the package with these pictures within it. It’s the little things, isn’t it?

Left to right: Dad, Mom, Aunt Donna, MeMe, and Grandaddy, 1974. Do you see that twinkle in my dad’s eye? That’s me. :-)  I came 2 years later to join the family.

Wasn’t my Momma a dollbaby? She had dimples and personality that would make you love her.

And here’s a picture from May, when I went home to visit. I had to order the picture from the photographer, so I didn’t have it until recently. There’s so much history here…

Top left to right: Dad, me, my stepbrother, Sean.

Bottom left to right: My stepmother, Kim, and my sister-in-law, Michelle.

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Ok. Enough. Now I want to cry again. I’m off now to put the day to rest. I’m an emotional soul at times.