Roots

I miss Sunday mornings at breakfast, the same five restaurants, the same five dishes.  I miss Wednesday afternoons, coffee perking as Mama, Amz and I sit on the porch and discuss the day, the coming and goings.  I miss Thursday nights, watching the latest Swamp People while we eat the blizzard of the month, or the tried and true brownie and ice cream.

I miss the cold, snowy days where chili or vegetable soup were often.  I miss making hot chocolate--my own experimented recipe--for my sister and I.  I miss the winter days when rain would fall and the snow would melt, if only for a little while.

Spring days too, I'll long for.  The days where we'd wait not-so-patiently for the first thaw to bring up the irises and daffodils.  For the warm day when we could finally till up the soil.  For Chet, lovable Chet, to run headlong down the fenceline, shaking his winter coat.

For summer barbeques, for Dale Hollow and the jet skis.  For my niece riding her bike, without training wheels.  For weeding and mowing, for the dinner picked up after at the Frosty Boy's.

For fall harvest, and the many, many days of canning, canning, freezing, and pickling.  For failed sauerkraut.  I miss the smell of cinnamon and freshly-made apple butter.  I miss orchard trips and the cornfields.

I missed things I never got to see, I'll never get to see:  Manny, the nephew, learning to walk, birthday parties, my niece Jazzy shooting her first gun.  Card parties and camping trips.  The many, many, many games of Yahtzee with cookies and coffee after work. 

I've traded them in for a chance to find my place.  My family, my home, things that can never be replaced.  Closeness to all I've known and loved.

I've traded them for Christmas eves wearing matching pajamas at the boyfriend's parents' house.  For Saturday evenings in the balcony at Seven Dolors, singing with John and his parents at mass.  For vicious games of Monopoly with his parents.

I've traded them for Monday night bar shifts with my favorite regulars.  For dinners with Kenny and Annette--family friends whom I've known since I was a child. 

For independence.
For roots.

Funny thing is, the thing I'm finding out is that I had them all along.

I am my mother's stubborn, hard-headed daughter.  The girl who's finding her way.  My father's child, a woman with habits that mirror his own.  The one who has searched so long to find whatever was missing, and to find it when she wasn't expecting to.

I've been gone over six months now, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that.  I love Minnesota, I do, but looking at all I've missed--it strikes a chord deep within.  In Indy, I had family.  They may not always be there, but they stood up for you when it counted.  Here, I've found out that family isn't always that.  The family you thought you knew and could trust can still stab you in the back.  And the ones you wouldn't expect to have your back, do.  In John's family I've found one like my own--something I am forever blessed for.  And in mine, I've found that perhaps I trust too easily.

 Therefore, I'm going back to my roots.  All I've learned in my twenty-three years of life will help me now.  To stand up for myself..  All my father's conviction, my mother's determination.  Add to my sister's stubbornness and sass.  These are my weapons, my family is my shield, and I am ready to jump to the next step.