In the words of the hair-band heart-throb Jon Bon Jovi....

"Who says you can't go home?"

Going home is always hard for me.  Actually, it isn't that hard to go home, but it is continuously hard to leave.  Everytime I wave goodbye to my parents as I'm driving away, I tear up.  It is hard to live so far from them, and also so far from where I still consider home.  Home for me is northwest Ohio.... a place I couldn't wait to get out of in high school.  I think I started getting senioritis my sophomore year and had dreams of escaping as soon as I could be college bound.  I'm sure I drove my parents crazy ranting and raving about fleeing the midwest.  That was then.  

Now I'm thirty....(well I will be in one week).   I not only LOVE the midwest and appreciate so much about it that I never could before, but I have also learned to love my hometown.  

A little background:  I went to a school in the country.  Some people say that, but what they really mean is that they went to a school in a small town.  Mine was LITERALLY in the country.  I think the closest building was a house about a quarter of a mile down the road.  Our football field was surrounded by cornfields, which would make for the perfect movie set of a winning football team and community, but our football team only ever won one game a year - always against the same school.  I had a great childhood.  Unlike a lot of people, I also had a great high school experience.  Things weren't always perfect.  I of course made some bad decisions, embarrassed myself profusely, and I never had tons of luck with boys (they always accused me of not paying enough attention to them).  What I did have was an amazing group of friends.  Those are friends I still have.

People always told me that I would eventually lose touch with my high school friends - that I would outgrow them, and they would outgrow me.  Some did.  My brothers never kept in touch with their high school friends, and I'm sure think I'm crazy that I still keep in touch with mine.  In fact, there is a group of friends from home that I love seeing and still keep in touch with.  These are friends that I CRAVE time with.  I think what we have is something unique.  Some of us moved away - to all different parts of the world, some stayed closer to home.  Some are married and have kids - some have had kids for awhile, some don't have any children at all.  We all changed in our twenties - like all people do.  

What spurred this?  This weekend I went home because my good friend Michelle's father passed away.  It was such a heartbreaking thing, but I knew that I wanted to be there with her so I packed up Liam and drove home.  Everyone came home.  Everyone was together.  Despite the circumstances it fed my soul.  These people make me laugh, and cry (in a good way).  I love them with all my heart and when I'm with them I am COMPLETELY myself.  I am the little farm girl from Ohio that used to tee-pee the football team for fun, and would put reflectors in people yards.  I am no one special, but they make me feel like I am forever loved.  I love my brilliant, funny, ambitious, and loving friends from Fulton County.  And for that reason, amongst others, I will ALWAYS love coming home.