Day 316...who sez you can't go home again?

This past weekend, I headed to my home away from home...a/k/a Kinston, NC. It's a little town, fairly unremarkable, really, in the eastern part of the state, about halfway between Raleigh and the coast. Unremarkable, that is, unless you've ever lived there.
I have.
This place gets under your skin like no place I've ever been, much less lived. And that, my friends, is saying a lot. It's coastal flat land, mostly sandy farmland, which spawn rich crops of corn and soybeans, and tobacco. Always tobacco. It IS North Carolina, after all. Home of the Tarheels, from whence came the name.
Aside from the beauty of the place, the climate is warm and mild, with crystal blue skies and balmy breezes that drift in from the ocean to warm your heart. Sometimes, you can even see a seagull or two floating on the currents, or plucking seeds from someone's field, or even snatching a quick drink from the birdbath in your back yard. Yes...it's that close to the ocean.
But by and large, the best part of the town is the people who call it home. If you know one person in this town, you know everyone. Believe me, I know. Either they're related, or they know someone who is. This comes in handy when I visit my dear friends, Bonnie and Scott, who live there, and insist...God bless 'em...on dragging me to every single function they can find to drag me to, anytime I visit. They show me off with great pride as their Best Friend from GA Who Now Lives in TN, and I cringe inwardly at the awkwardness of having my pedigree trotted out for inspection yet again, even as I smile and shake hands (or more often hug), outwardly pleased as punch to be able to add another notch to my ever-widening web of contacts that I can claim to be aquainted with.
You may wonder how a girl from the sprawling metropolis of Atlanta ever got hooked in with such a rural outpost. My dear late husband can claim this honor...it was his hometown, you see. The place that molded him into the man of strong values that I fell in love with, even though he was not a small-town man in the slightest. No...my Bill was a city man if there ever was one. But as much as he hated to admit it, he loved that little town, and was so proud to be able to show it off to me, albeit behind a manufactured scowl. He thought it would be enough to throw me off...but I knew him. And I knew how much it secretly meant to him when we moved back there for a short time just after we married in 1994. I have to say, I've never been so happy, and I think my children would agree. It was a wonderful, Mayberry-like life.
The friends we made there were lifelong..friends like everyone should have at least one of in their lifetime. We have laughed and cried together, raised kids together, worked and ate together, shared all we had together, scraped up communal money to pay a bill together, fought...and loved each other fiercely...together. When my beloved Bill died, they were there to help me scrape the pieces together and bring him home to Kinston to rest in peace. For that alone, I will always be truly grateful. But more grateful yet that I am honored to be able to call them "friend".
Because of all of that and so much more, no matter where the road leads me in the future, a piece of my heart will always live in Kinston, NC.

Day 328...why do we do it?

I have just spent a crazy angst-filled emotional roller coaster-type week....and I did it to myself. Let me explain...
When I was in 6th grade, I met a girl who would wind up being my best friend all the way through to our Senior year in high school, when we wound up drifting apart...as so many friendships do at that age. Being a girl who had goals, she moved on to more educational pastures, while I went to vocational school. And within two years, we had pretty much lost contact.
This bothered me terribly...but I was young, and easily distracted, so it didn't really sink in what exactly I had lost for several years. By then...it was too late. I tried frantically to find her...beat down every path I could, to no avail. And over the next 20 years, as the computer age evolved and the internet made All Knowledge accessable, I kept trying. But it just seemed as though she had disappeared off the planet. Eventually, I told myself that it didn't matter....she probably wouldn't want to renew the friendship, anyway. And, sadly, I learned to let it go.
My life continued...full, if not always happy. Then happy, if not always full. My children grew up and started families, I finally found the love of my life. Precious ones were lost and found, but there was always a piece of me missing.
Last week, purely by chance, I found her. On Facebook, of all places. And I immediately sat down to email her. Then, on pins and needles....I waited.
During this week-long wait, I agonized through all the layers of Hell, second guessing all the goofy random memories I put in that letter, spilling my guts, sounding needy. What if I embarrassed her? What if I was a part of her life that she had spent 20 years trying to remove herself from? What if she had no interest whatsoever in renewing our friendship?? What if she thought I was some sort of psycho-stalker?? What if.....?
What if I just took a breath for two seconds and really looked at why I needed so terribly to be re-accepted by this girl?
It's amazing how this scenario, and ones like it, are played out in peoples' lives every single day. We all want...and need...to be loved and accepted, even cherished. And we feel woefully inadequate if those needs are not met to our satisfaction. We want to pin the fault on the other person for not rising to the occasion...we want to pin it on ourselves for not being 'good' enough. Why do we do this to ourselves??
In the grand scheme of my life, would this reconciliation....or lack of it....have really have made such an impact? Could I...as impossible as it seems...actually have lived to see the sun rise one more day, if she had hit the 'delete' key, and gone back to her coffee?
By the time Thursday rolled around, I was having a serious conversation with myself, asking the deeper questions like Did I in fact, REALLY want this reunion for the RIGHT reasons, or because I needed to prove to myself that I had not been rejected? Had I actually grown out of that obsessive attitude I had as a teenager that caused me to go through school with a target on my back, feeling like a social outcast? After considerable soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that I had, indeed, grown past that need. But that I would never grow past the need to have this incredible woman in my life on some level. Because she is a part of me....there are bits of my life that 'only' she...gets. And for that reason and no other, I have always needed her....and will always need her in my life.
If the email never came, it would be ok, because at least I got the chance to tell her that. The ball was in her court now, to do with as she willed. But her decision was exactly that...hers. And if she chose to hit delete, then it would be my loss, true....but hers, ultimately. And accepting this gave me great peace.
I am very happy to report that my email arrived Thursday night...as full of tears as the one I had sent. All is well in the universe...and all is well with my soul.