I Need My System

Some days I simply want to go home.  I want to sit next to my husband on the couch to watch the "Sound of Music" to hear those familiar happy tunes or maybe watch "O Brother Where Art Thou" to laugh at the same lines again and again.  Or I might wander off to my room to play piano and sing.  Whatever it is, whenever it is I just want to be home.

Until two years ago that home was in Iowa.  Iowa had been my home for nearly 50 years and suddenly I found myself moving to Kansas.  Kansas where the sunflower is it's state flower.  For the Iowa farmer and those of us who grew up pulling weeds from soybean fields, the sunflower was an evil predator.  But you know what?  When I see those flowers growing wild in the ditches today, I am taken back to a place of my youth.  A place that is largely responsible for shaping who I am today.  Pierson, Iowa, at the time, had a population of about 200 people.  They may have even included our family pets in that count just to keep the numbers up.  It would be alright if they did, really, because our pets taught us lessons that people couldn't.  We learned about the birth of puppies and kittens, and how turning ground-squirrels loose in town could make any nice lawn a colony, while increasing the frustration of the homeowner.  That alone was a lesson in mercy and grace, I suppose.   

When I first moved to Kansas City a couple years ago, I spent the majority of my time turning around to go the "right" direction.  I was lost most of the time.  I would find myself in tears sometimes wanting to go back to my home.  I wanted to be where everything and everyone was familiar to me.  I didn't feel as if, like the sticker indicates, I could work away from my home or with any other system.  I wanted to go home and that home was Iowa!  I was lonesome for my friends, my family and the quiet place in the country I enjoyed visiting with my dog.

Home is, after all, where I feel loved and protected.  Home is where I feel valued and needed.  Home is where I can give my love without fear of being misunderstood or taken for granted. Home is with my husband, Mike who provides those things today.  But home is also in the people and places in Iowa that are and always will be dear to me.  I may have left Iowa, but Iowa has never left me.  I haven't been separated from my "home system", I've simply expanded it.

If you have been a part of my life for forty-six years or just two, know that you have been and are a part of the system that keeps me grounded and growing.  Maybe you are my system.

Have a best day!

Amy

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