As we age and collect memories from new people and places, we must become one with the fact that our best friends must continue to find new best friends and our outdated lovers must love again. I’m realizing this more and more as I near my departure to Colorado. On my drive in to work, I look around and wonder what this life would have been like had Minnesota not been the first place that I moved on and became an adolescent. The first lunch room I entered without knowing a soul. The stage of my first real kiss. The place that my brother was born. The place my sister soon followed. The place I fell in love for the first time. The place I almost lost my first love and had to grow up really fast. The place I thought I fell in love hundreds of times after that. The place that I turned 18. The place that I cried every day for two years. The place that I left home. The place where I read books, napped in libraries and took lecture notes. The place my GPA slowly declined over 4 years, and was worth every point. The place I met someone new that brightened every corner of my life. The party that I looked around and realized my friends were my family. The place I fought with and learned that my real family is solid gold. The place I learned to love winter…with some help. The place that many people I adore call home. The place I am terrified to leave. The place that has made me and held me and will always make up my roots. The place a part of me will miss every day I am away.
It’s time to keep stitching away. It’s time to free up some space in this heart and mind and let others do the same. If you are reading this, I wish for you to expand more than you were ever able to do with yesterday. Carry on from the place that is your home, but let your home be mobile.
