Thoughts of home

My boots have been heavy the last couple weeks as I have thought a lot about the idea of home. I have just come through a nice, long several weeks in my new house in Brunswick -- the longest stretch without traveling since I moved last August. I have been simultaneously at home and homesick. I miss the city where I spent the last 13 years, the city where, in the truest sense of the words, I grew up. The city where I became who I am. I miss the people who walked with me on that journey. That's the true source of the sickness. I miss my people. I miss my family. I miss having the option of not being lonely.

It's weird to feel anything other than joy when so many things are going so rightly. In fact, I am overwhelmingly excited to be where I am in life and to envision my future. Unless, as I made the mistake of doing a couple weeks ago, I look too far into that future. I have always pictured myself retiring to the small town life in which I grew up. Even when I lived in my city, I knew one day I would return to my town. But, a couple weeks ago, reality shattered that vision. For the first time, I realized there is a very small chance that home will still be there when I am ready to return to it. The town will likely be there, and I love the town. But the town is not home. The people who are there, the love that is there, the comfort of knowing and being known... those are home. If I am fortunate to live to old age, those will have died with my grandparents and with my parents. When I am old, I may have no home to return to. The emptiness of that thought is nauseating. Nauseating and deeply, deeply lonely.

Christmastime at the Glen!

This is my first year Christmas decorating alone. I think it's shaping up nicely.

Dori + Christmas tree = happy, happy wissa

one of two lamp posts outside by the steps

snowflake window + peace wreath

mantle. not quite finished here. waiting for cats' stockings and my manger scene.

in front of TV

entry table

kitchen counter

baskets under entry table (sorry the pic is blurry; this is my favorite part.)

star on the wall

both babies

home for a couple of hours today before going back to housesitting. babies are taking advantage of mama time.

still so glad I'm home

happy I'm home

Home

What a great place to grow up! Love this place, dusted in white.

Not in Atl anymore

This is one of 3 similar aisles in milledgeville Walmart. And this is how I know I'm almost home. :)

free to breathe

breathing hasn't felt this good in a long time. i am so happy living in my own space, just dori and me.

even when i did not recognize it, so much of my life was lived in fear and anxiety. i could not move without being in someone else's space or having someone in mine. i was never free just to do what i wanted.

of course, life is supposed to be about thoughtfulness and considering others above oneself, but home is supposed to be about safety and comfort. i felt neither of those there. i was afraid of being up too early in the morning or too late at night. i was afraid of uncomfortable company and/or awkward conversation. i was afraid to adjust anything to make the environment more comfortable. i was afraid that my things would be misused, broken, or stolen. and the list goes on...

now, i am free. free to breathe. and breathing hasn't felt this good in a long time.

images of home

did a Google image search on Liberia as part of my research for work and found a picture of one of our friends in Saclepea. Roseline sat with us well into the evening most nights, and once, she made us spaghetti for breakfast.

finding Roseline via Google made me smile. other pictures made me cry. my boots became heavy as i scrolled through images of Liberia's violent civil war. i feel so connected to the people and the emotions in the photos. the elementary-aged boys wielding machine guns seem like my boys. in reality, my boys, my friends, were those boys forced into manhood before puberty.

through a range of emotional responses to a simple Google image search, my overwhelming impression is one of homesickness. these are images of home. i want to go home.
-mo

answers!

1)

2) I have a new home! Dori and I now live at Townview Station in a cozy 1br apartment. So far, we are loving it.

the winner is...

...my Daddy! He won an iPad2 this week and brought it home to his bride.

pictures of home

see facebook.

Daddy's house

yes, this is a computer in a swing in the front yard.

Parents' house

home again

haha. i signed into blogger stuff to comment on april's new blog (checkaprilandtim.blogspot.com), so i decided to take a look at my old blog. i am still in atl, and a billion life-changing stuffs have happened since that last post, but last week i returned to the i just want to go home mentality. There are people here without whom i will not move, though, so until they decide to go home, i'm sticking around. they are home.
-mo

Planning

Today, I just want to go home. I want to go home and stay forever. Home is more a state of mind and heart than a place, but the only place I have ever felt my heart belongs is Sandersville, Georgia. The only reservation I have about committing myself to Sandersville is that eventually I would like to have not only somewhere to call home but someone to call home. I have lived in Sandersville for 22 years and know no one there worth marrying. But, I cannot live my life chasing a man I do not know. Today, I do not need a man. Today, I just want to go home.

(Don't mistake this post for a decision to go home when I graduate. Two weeks ago, I was just as certain that I wanted to go overseas as a Journeyman. Here's the problem: Just as much as I don't like not having a plan, I don't like making decisions.)
-mo

Going to Grandma's

I guess last weekend was pretty eventful. This is post #3 inspired by the two days.

I went to Grandma's house for the first time since somebody else has lived there. The new inhabitants have erected fences outside and walls inside. But to me, it's still Grandma's house. In my mind, I can still walk in from the carport, turn around the corner, and see her sitting in her chair, the ceiling fan whizzing above her. If I let my mind wander back almost ten years, the chair beside her is not empty. Granddaddy sits there. As I turn the corner, he says, "Hey, pretty girl! Whatcha know?" Their chairs are two of the four recliners in this one room. There's a couch along the wall - which is almost covered with pictures of Trussell children - between the door and Grandma, and there's a love seat on the wall across from the big screen TV and the little gas heater. A small bookshelf is below a window to outside, between the TV and the door. Between Granddaddy and the love seat is a hat (or coat) rack holding caps and gourds. Behind the two recliners on the far end of the room are a couple of bookshelves and the toys that have survived at least three generations of Trussells. On the wall with the love seat is a window into Grandma's kitchen. A small TV sits in the window so Grandma never has to choose between a meal and Wheel of Fortune.

I wish I were an artist and could paint the scenes of Grandma's house. So much of what is Grandma's house could never be conveyed on canvas, but I would like to try. I don't want to forget.

Unless you are one of the six (or 10, if you count the greats) who had the privilege of calling this place Grandma's house, you may not understand this post or the significance of what I have described. For us, I have described a picture of happy memories.
-mo

Moville

Home

Home is my favorite place on earth.

I learned this weekend that home is one of the loneliest places on earth. The people there love me; they care about what's going on in my life; they pay attention to what I have to say. But, they are all coupled. Everywhere I go, I am the odd one. When everybody's home, there's Mama&Daddy, April&Tim, Joy&Andrew (who is not part of the family but is too often around anyway), Granny&Popa, Uncle Earl&Aunt Patricia, Uncle Richard&Aunt Donna, etc. Then, there's Wissa. Just Wissa. Lonely Wissa.

Yet, home is my favorite place on earth.
-mo
Moville

Grandma's house

Sometimes, I just want to go to Grandma's house. I want a giant magnolia tree. A dirt driveway. Brown carpet. A dozen recliners. An abundance of food. Someone to ask, "What ya know, Miss Priss?" The soft hum of a refrigerator and/or a box fan. Her occasional snore. No computer. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on a weeknight or a Sunday afternoon nap during a Braves game. To wake up just in time for the last out. Quiet. Peace.

One year ago today, she was buried. Grandma's house will never know such peace again. Not sure I will, either. Only in sweet memories.
-mo
Moville

Swing with me

Today (actually, yesterday, according to the clock), I played. I visited the playground on which I spent countless recesses sitting on my "thinking rock" watching my classmates play. The rock is long gone, but the same wooden structure, as we called it, is there, the same swings, slide, tunnel, monkey bars, metal climby things, and wooden balance beam. I walked across the swinging bridge and slid down the fireman's pole. The trip down the pole was shorter than I remembered it. I walked across the balance beam, which was closer to the ground than I remembered it. I climbed to the top of the round, green, metal climby thing. We used to get in trouble for climbing to the top. A classmate of mine fell and broke his arm when he broke that rule. Today, I was safe. The climb was not as high as I remembered it. I walked under the monkey bars and grabbed them without having to jump. They were not as tall as I remembered them. I visited the cluster of trees that was so obviously a house to us, a fort to the boys. I was disappointed that it looked so much like trees today - not at all like I remembered it. The one redeeming factor of my trip to my childhood playground: whoever came along and changed all the rest of that stuff did not oil the swings. Those old, screechy swings were exactly as I remembered them. To the familiar tune of their screechy lullaby, I drifted into a nostalgic dreamland. Would that I could swing forever...
-mo
Moville