home

"Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

-From Garden State, my favorite movie (Phil, did you really add this one to you Netflix queue? I was serious about this one...)

As I was traveling to Des Moines this afternoon, I was thinking about home. Ten years ago, I lived in a house with my mom, dad and sister. We lived in the house I had lived in since I was two years old. West Des Moines, Iowa was the only place I had known as home.

Now, I have lived for the majority of the past seven years in Lawrence, Kansas. First it was just my college town; my college town that I anxiously returned to from weekends at my home in Iowa. But my Iowa "home" had changed. My parents divorced right after I graduated high school. Too many memories existed in the house we lived in when we were a whole family. My parents sold it and move on to other places. These places I've visited on my returns to Des Moines on holidays and school breaks. But these places were not my home.

Now when I'm home I always try to stay with my grandma at least one night - this has been my family's home for something like 50 years. The paint is more colorful, the futon in the "pit" (office/spare bedroom/tv room) is brand new and probably much more comfortable then the four-inch mattress in the old hide-a-bed but it is still my the closest thing I have to my "home" when I'm in my home state.

Now, my home has become the college town where I have lived the past seven years. Semesters went by and I found the shortcuts through town, the weekends to avoid Target (move-in weekend!), my favorite coffee spot, favorite Monday night margarita stop, favorite bar on a Saturday night. Some friends have moved on, some of those friends I no longer speak to. But some friends became family.

Now I learn and love and grow in Lawrence. Once my college town. Now my home.

Here I Am

Have you ever been to a place that just amazes you?

Maybe it's a place. For me, a physical place would be the mountains. I love a good view with mountains and trees and sky and space. But the ocean, too. Endless. And peaceful yet powerful.

But then there's another location, that if are truly amazed by, life seems brilliant and beautiful and limitless. It's that place, in your mind, where you've realized you have and are exactly what you want at this moment. It's not perfection. Nothing ever will be. But it's handling the imperfections the best you can. Smiling and laughing every chance you get.

I think it's the approaching fall that has me inspired and appreciating everything. Life seems more free, more in MY control. The summer heat always makes me feel trapped and immovable. Even just this brief cooler weather is a release. I can stretch more. Do more. Be capable of anything. Everything. It's a new beginning. For me this year, not really because of a new school semester. But a change in season means new goals and a new mindset. I can be whoever I want to be.

Not that I want to be a totally different person. This just seems to be the best time to make the changes I want. I truly believe you can make a concentrated effort to improve yourself every day - even if it's tiny and you're picking at a mountain with a spoon - but this season, it seems the changes I want can happen instantly.

So, I'm here at 25 years old, knowing how I got here but still blown away by what my life has brought me. It hasn't been easy, but that's made everything that much worthwhile. And I can't wait to see where else I go.

Being Social

I still live in the college town where I went to school. I happen to love this. I get to enjoy people, places and things very unlike how I did when I was a student (I have more time now, strictly working 40 hours a week when, as an undergrad, I had a full-time schedule, p/t job and double full-time activities load).

A few months after I started my full-time job, my closest friend Megan, moved to Japan with her boyfriend, now husband. Other than friends who were still in school, I didn't know many people other than my coworkers and my friend Ryan (late 2008 we spent most of our time watching episodes of LOST and Six Feet Under - we were exciting). And friends who moved to Kansas City might as well fallen off the end of the earth as often as I get to see them... (they clearly forgot how awesome Lawrence is).

Last winter (Feb 2008) my friend Briana dragged me to, what she was calling, a "tweetup". Yes, I was using twitter and conversing with local people, but did I actually want to meet these people?!

Short answer: yes, of course I did!

Now the people I've met via Twitter I see almost weekly. We have Lawrence Margarita Mondays at The Sandbar, lunch a few times a month, dinner sporadically and, every so often, shenanigans down on Mass Street (I even found someone to crash with while I was in between leases). This is in addition to the official monthly tweetups hosted by the Lawrence Tweetup organization.

Tonight, I'm heading to the Re:fresh! Art Show at the Barrel House downtown after Lawrence Margarita Mondays and the local tweeters get a VIP box!

Cheers to being social!

Yeah, there's a building named after me on campus, so what?

Ok, so there isn't a building named AFTER me, per se... but there IS a building on campus with my name.

Bailey Hall, home of many thrilling and exciting departments in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

It's also the bus stop right before mine when I ride in the morning.

*Some* of the bus drivers are, let's put it, a little more enthusiastic than others. It's cute and slightly encouraging that someone driving a bus can be that cheerful in the morning. It's not cute when they announce *your* name rather loudly over bus intercom with more zest then you're used to and you almost fall off the bus seat.

Um, good morning?