Homecoming

I turned older last Sunday and I expect that I will next year too.  That seems to be the trend these days.  But where has the past 10 years gone?   Sheesh.  Between waking up and going about our daily routines and then falling asleep watching any number of reality shows on cable television, what really separates one day from the next?  It all becomes squashed.  Life becomes a uniboob of memories. 

On my next birthday, I'll be turning th...th....thhiii.....thiiiiirt.....thirteeeeeeeeeeee-----n. Yes, thirteen, folks.  You thought I would be turning 30 because that's what happens when you subtract my birth year from 2012.  And that’s ridiculous.  

However, I wouldn't want to go back to being 13.  Most of you have seen pictures of me in Jr. High.  Sweet. Merciful. Savior.  

Last weekend had me driving to Ohio for an old high school friends baby shower.  She's as cute as a button. Her husband wants to name their son "Lucky" which makes Sarah very upset.  How wonderful it was to see these old friends in their current capacities as mothers, wives, and teeth-cleaning technicians.  Each of them has enriched my life simply by being in it with their lovely and hilarious selves.

I also visited the town where I spent part of my early childhood.  Going back to my roots was like greeting an old friend.  I had this intense urge to re-introduce myself in case they had forgotten what 23 years could do to a person.  No more potbelly, glasses and pigtails.  They scarcely recognized me.

While driving down Bradley Street at a fast enough clip that I wouldn’t creep out the neighbors, yet slow enough to trigger a flood of nostalgia, I realized that childhood has a way of distorting reality.  Houses, trees, streets, front porches all are smaller then what you remember. The world is just a grander place when taken in from a tiny set of eyes.  

Everything made me think of mom.  She colored my little world, even then.

Driving away and catching a glimpse of my childhood past growing smaller in the distance, I felt a keen sense of gratitude for the life I had been given and for my life now that is completely sustained and propelled by a similar tenor of grace.