Indiana

Today's post was a memoir inspired prompt from The Red Dress Club.  The assignment was to write about a positive from a negative experience.

I found out four days before the last day of my junior year of high school.  We were moving to Indiana, and the thought made me want to die.



Photo graciously provided by Heartland Photography.



I'd grown up in Oxford, Kansas - home of one blinking traffic light, the Oxford Wildcats, and a historic flour mill.  Surrounded by wheat fields and cow pastures, I belonged in a simple farm town where I was within walking distance of just about every person who attended my school.  I spent my years entangled in deep friendships that began the first day of second grade.  There were approximately 35 students in my class, and it was an extreme exception when someone moved away, or a new face infiltrated our cozy town.

In Oxford, I learned to ride a bike, I shared my first kiss, I floated down the river on an inner tube, I got in trouble with my girlfriends for drinking strawberry wine coolers, and I fell in love for the very first time.  I played every sport, I participated in plays, and I tackled countless extracurricular activities.  Not because I was skilled or talented, more because that's what people did in my small town.  Everyone participated.  

So when I heard we were moving, I'd have rather lost an arm.  I had been looking forward to so many things; anticipating so many rites of passage of being a high school senior.  Of course there was cross country, and cheerleading, and yearbook, and my boyfriend, and my friends, but more than that, I was absolutely petrified of not knowing how to fit in anywhere else.  And worse?  I wasn't even sure I wanted to fit in anywhere else.  I was angry, and sad, and terrified.

I made the move with silent tears and a death grip around Libby's neck.  I enrolled in an accelerated graduation program at a high school seven times larger than the one I'd left.

I wanted it over.  I didn't want the rites of passage.  I didn't want cheerleading or cross country or plays or boyfriends or friends.  I didn't buy a cap and gown.  I didn't attend the graduation ceremony.

I moved back to Kansas as quickly as I could, eager to put my feet on the soil that had grounded my roots.  But, I was back only moments when I realized everything had changed.  My world stopped the moment I left, but not everybody else's had.  The arms I'd imagined would be open and empty were filled with new experiences, and new people, and new traditions, and new inside jokes.  The cross country team had been successful without me; the cheerleaders didn't miss a beat. Nothing seemed to have suffered in my absence.  I felt lost.

I spent several years feeling bitter and sad- hating that I'd missed prom and graduation, and wishing I'd have allowed myself to enjoy my time in Indiana.  I'd spent the entire time trying to escape it, and I'd failed to see it's purpose.  It wasn't until I was faced with moving to Florida right after college, that I began to see how beneficial that experience had been.

I learned that life doesn't wait for me, nor should it.  I learned that the events in my life are determined by my cooperation and willingness to live them and breathe them and participate in them.

I am so grateful for the camouflaged heartbreak that taught me how to reach beyond my comfort zone and taught me "home" isn't about a place.  Home is about a feeling.