Moving away from home has been a completely different experience this time around. I love it just as much more, though… Don’t get me wrong!…
But I’m realizing today how much I’m missing in the lives of life long friends. When I moved away at 17, I was so ready to just run away. Growing up in a small town, always itching to live in a bigger, brighter city. I didn’t have a care in the world about all the people I was leaving behind. (Okay, I did. But, relationships right out of high school are drastically different than the life long friendships you make.)
But here I am, in my mid 20s. I moved home at 21, and spent a year and a half wishing I never did. The truth is I found love, when I was home. No, not romantically… I actually began talking to Zack while spending a few weeks in Florida… That’s neither here, nor there… Reconnecting with the people from my childhood, even teenage years. Meeting new, wonderful, inspirational people. I grew, SO much while I was home….
So, here I am thinking about how I missed my best friend since KINDERGARTEN have her baby. I’m now missing her raise her precious little girl…. Who is now almost a year old. I missed my first and potentially only niece be born — now I’m missing every single one of her firsts. Then of course, I missed my “newphew” Kelvin be born. Kanisha has been the best friend I could ask for. One of the very few people on this earth I would honestly take a bullet for — and I missed her baby boy be born in April and I’m missing all of his firsts as well… I even missed my mom run her first race. It was a 2 mile run/walk for the “Jamestown Olympics”. She completed it in 23 minutes!! SO AWESOME. She signed up for it 2 weeks before the event, and had never really ran (distance wise) in her life!!! & the most painful of all, I missed the last several weeks/months of my brothers life… & NOW I DONT EVEN HAVE ANY PLACE TO VISIT HIM. (Although I cried & begged — there was no headstone purchased for him)
I’m missing such crucial events in the lives of the people I love most. I wish I could be there to see these people going through such life changing experiences….
However, with all that being said, I’m incredibly happy here. Maryland is beautiful. It’s so green. My job is, long, sometimes stressful, and consumes my life. But it is such a rewarding experience. I am learning so much about restaurants, food, the things we all put into our bodies day in and day out without thinking twice about.. It’s an incredible experience for my career goals. On top of that I have my incredible and supportive fiance by my side here, and our friends in MD will never be family the way so many other friends in my life are, but they are still hilarious, kind hearted, beautiful souls that I am truly blessed to know.
But it’s days like this that growing up is just so bitter-sweet. We all have family and friends who aren’t near us anymore, but some days it’s just too unfair.
Thanks for posting this reflection on life. It really is bittersweet and reminds us to live passionately in the moment.
We never have to grow up, we just have different interests, focuses, people in our lives at different times. Growing up or “getting older” is just your attitude towards change physically and emotionally. In other words – Keep smiling and good things can happen.
Growing up is hard, and hindsight is always 20/20. I felt just like you did about a lot of my old childhood friends when you moved away, and now I regret not keeping a close of relationship with them as I could have. I think its amazing that despite all the hardships you are still relishing and enjoying your life, you are one positive, tough cookie!
Moving across the country is extremely hard and rewarding. but I think in general that’s what we learn from life, there are always going to be pluses and minuses to our decisions.
You got this….and I totally understand. I was the only one in my family to move away and it has definite pluses and definite downsides. We first were only 8 hours away (OH to NC) and then we moved to Alsaka and now we are days away from Ohio. I went through a rough time back in 2005 and was happy that I was only 8 hours away. I hope that nothing happens here because it is stressful enough being in Alaska and I can’t have my dad just drive down to comfort me…such is life and we deal, but sometimes i think it helps to just talk about it.
I still live within 20 min of my BFF who has been my best friend since 6th grade. Every day I am thankful that we both gallavanted around and found ourselves back within driving distance