Farewell, dear SC

Leaving a place you live and starting afresh is almost always bittersweet. You get both the eagerness of a new adventure and segment of life beginning, but then mourning at the life you used to have and the inevitability of time passing.

When we left Provo, I couldn't wait to get home to South Carolina and live with my family. Now that we have left South Carolina, I am more than ready to move on to new things in Wisconsin. I like to think bigger and better things, but then again, I may be working up Madison in my head to be some sort of Mecca and I do not want to be disappointed so I'm trying to pretend like it won't be as cool as everyone says.

As eager as I was to leave my parents' house and embark again with our small little family, there are many things I will miss, much to my family's surprise, I'm sure. I will miss gong swimming all the time, taking Atticus to the "big boy" and having someone to hold Lu anytime I needed to do something. Living at home was everything and nothing I imagined it would be. I had some notion in my head of freedom with constant babysitters and no bills to pay. I think we actually only ended up going on two dates the entire summer, one to dinner with KK and Byrd, my high school friends turned post-high-school sweethearts, and then once to play games at a local coffee shop (we took Lu, though) with the same couple. We didn't really have many friends there (we made friends with a couple in the ward who had two kids about the same age as ours, but we only hung out a few times) and the location of my parents' house is terrible for going anywhere not by car, which was awful because two babies plus suffocatingly hot car equals most of the time we stayed home. The weather was HOT, so, so miserably hot that you couldn't even walk outside. I forgot how scarred I am from high school and being in all the same places again was just plain weird. I did not like going to Church again at my home ward.

What I will miss is being so familiar with everything. There is something very comforting in that. I will miss my mom cooking Sunday dinner. I'll miss seeing Gigi and having her dote on Tallulah like she is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'll miss having a big, nice, well-equipped kitchen, though I didn't use it nearly as much as I could have, and I didn't really cook the food I enjoy because my family has very different tastes and I didn't want to cook dinner if not for the whole family. I am excited about being able to have my own food and not have to worry about Atticus finding the Oreos/Pop-tarts/etc. but I will miss grocery shopping with my mom at the commissery and going out to eat on occasion.

I'll miss the chance to reconnect with old friends, to play in a warm lake, and of course, the ocean. I love the ocean. I'll miss Benny running up to me and hugging Baby "Tallua" and telling her how gross she smells. I'll miss watching Megan making modern art in her notebook and crazy Gav-O playing old-school Nintendo like it was the greatest invention ever. I'll miss good conversations with Lauren and stealing Allison's clothes. I'll miss Ethan's slightly-obnoxious-still-a-teenager-but-in-college laziness, but also his making of delicious BLTs every morning when he woke up at noon. I'll miss how proud I feel of my mom whenever she comes home from work, even if she claims her job isn't that hard. I still think it's pretty cool she decided to go back to school and get a degree, and she seems to be really good at what she does. I'll miss my dad's crazy dreams about writing a famous movie script, all the while secretly believing that one day he will.

Most of all, I'll miss the fact that the last few months will probably never replicate themselves ever again in our lives. My family is growing up and moving out and moving on. Watching home videos reminded me of the fact that we actually used to live together every day, that we ate dinner together and went to baseball games and laughed and traveled and shared rooms and fought. No matter how different we are now, no matter what paths we might follow and what contrasting lives we may pursue, my family knows me and I hope loves me like nobody else in the world, and for that reason, I will miss living with them.



Thanks for the memories.

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