I'm not about to lie, I was a little nervous to go back. More than a little nervous to have my family of four invade our neighbors' family of five's house for five days. Fish and company stink after three days you know? But this was Turner's one time in a year to see his very best friend, shorter just wouldn't do. I am such a creature of habit that it's hard for me to step outside my carefully crafted facade of normalcy and sanity. Tickets in hand we sailed across the skies to our former home.
As soon as I saw Amy walk out to greet us with that beautiful smile on her face, everything felt right. Right like we could still walk across the driveway, right like the sound of a basket ball dribbling, right like borrowing an egg, right like finally seeing your family again after a year apart. We managed to spend five whole days together, and it was wonderful. The kids never once argued, heck they never once looked up from playing together. We got to see so many of our friends, share meals, laughs, a few drinks and so many memories.
Our trip lightened a weight that has been pressing on my heart for the past year. I have worried that our gypsy lifestyle was going to break my children's hearts. I thought being moved across the country from their very best friends would put irreparable cracks in their lives. After seeing how happy they were in Georgia and how equally happy they were to return to Texas I know that I was wrong. The moving away from and the distance apart from our Green family didn't break Turner and Tate's hearts. It did make cracks, but those have only served as space for our new friends here.
I'm hoping this gypsy - go where the wind blows us- life is teaching my kids acceptance. So far I believe it is. Beyond that it, it is teaching us all that happiness doesn't reside in any one place. It's any where you look for it. It's in different states, in different shapes, in different cultures, and within so many different people. I hope when my children are grown they look back and know that they have friends and happiness spread all over the world. I want them to not think they will live and die in the same town, but venture out and try out many different kinds of happy. My happy is in running trot lines on a pond with my dad, it's in looking across the valley as the monsoons of Phoenix roll in, it's in watching softly falling snow in Utah while holding my baby, it's in looking down a cherry blossom lined street, and it's on the gulf coast basking in the sun with my Sweetness and digging in the sand. I want Turner and Tate to know that no matter where God sends them they will be happy, as long as they look to find it.
