Circumstancial

Since I've been home I've gotten to spend a lot of time with my family. This is something I realize that I greatly for advantage before I left to go to college. When I'm away I remember the little things about my family and that is what I miss. I don't miss the movie theatre where I spent a ton of my time in high school or the park. I miss my family. I miss Aubree running around with Samauri. I miss Steve napping in the chair and Mom cooking dinner when I came home from school. As has become my tradition, I watched Garden State tonight. I try and watch it at least once when I'm home. It reminds me that sometimes it takes a new person, and a trip home to make you realize that this is your life. I know I've talked about this before. My Nanny tells me all the time that this is my life. Right here and right now. I'm living it. Something new and fantastic isn't going to happen that marks the start of my life. This is it. Me sitting on this faded old blue leather couch in wrapped up in the fabrics of people that I love. Being home has made me appreciate it, as it always does.

When you're away from a place with it's own oven, and you suddenly find yourself with an unlimited supply of oven, your first instinct is to make cupcakes, which I did. When you realize that this is your hallway and you don't share it with 29 other girls you automatically walk to your room from the shower naked, which I do. I feel like the little things in life go unnoticed. I'm not going to get into this because I've blogged extensively about it already.

Another thing I realized today that really matters are circumstances. As I write this I'm tearing up because I'm a mixture of happy and sad. Today Steve, Amelia and I went to Oklahoma and went to the casino. We love to do this. Ever since I turned eighteen it seems like we have been frequenting the casino (some of us more than others). Since I'm away roughly eleven months out of the year I don't get to make this trip as often as I like. Today I made it. For one day I forgot everything that bothers me about my family. I forgot all of the little irritating things that they do and drive me mad and I even forgot that Steve was sick.

Being in this atmosphere, all of the noises and lights, made me forget who I was and what my circumstances were. I didn't think about Mizzou until one of the employees mentioned it. I didn't think about college or the fact that I was home for Thanksgiving. I was just home and out to the casino for the afternoon with my family. I loved that feeling. Now the feeling of realizing the circumstances again was swift and jolting but I also realized that this is something I can't change and that I need to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.

I took a hot tub with my mom tonight and we talked about the ins and outs of life, like we normally do in your tub. As I've said many times, life isn't hard. There are only situations that arise, circumstances if you will, that make it seem hard. I've decided that I'm going to ignore these circumstances and situations and just continue living my life. I have talked to my mom several times about how people act differently around people who are sick, and their families. Don't. Just because someone's body is a little off kilter doesn't mean that they can't gamble like they used to. I think sometimes I need reminding of that. I don't believe I treat Steve any differently because of his illness and I don't intend to start now.

Today was just a jogger. A memory flash of how important these little things in life are to me and how I took them for granted before I was away from my family for extended periods of time. I'm not going to do that any more. I've found that this break I haven't really wanted to hang out with my friends as much. I've wanted to spend time with my family. Though I have been gone a few times, I am trying my best to stay around home because I want to. Because these people are important and I love them.

Now this may all seem like rambling but it makes me feel better to write it. I love my family very much and I miss them unconditionally. I say that this is my home but my life is in Columbia and I still believe that. Back to Garden State. There is a quote in this movie spoken by the main character Andrew Largeman. I think it's pretty self explanatory. It helped me a lot when I was leaving for college and sometimes even does now.

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


I think that family is just a group of people that misses the same imaginary place. I know as a piece of my family I miss when we are all together. Though it may not be the most perfect gathering, it's home.


Koleen Kay
Mt. Vernon, Missouri
The Basement