Moscow to Missoula

My parents just rolled out of Missoula right onto I90 heading home.

Unfortunately, I was mostly sick the entire weekend. Fortunately, the only thing I want when I'm sick is my momma and some quality cable time in a King sized bed of a Best Western. Thankfully, I got plenty of television time with my momma and a snoozing dad who can't keep his eyelids open past 9pm to watch a movie. (Have you seen Parental Guidance yet? As he pointed out, it's like a cheap version of Uncle Buck to which I had to agree but also it was good for some laughs.)

My parents. How I miss them.

I remember just before leaving for Seattle this summer I was taking an Intro to Literary Studies class. We were reading something I can't even remember the name of and we were asked to respond to the question, "How do you feel about home?" I remember receiving my paper back with a bunch of red marks and a comment that said, "Oh, that's quite sad and depressing." I didn't write what I think to this day was bad, I just wrote the truth. Home for me is sort of just that: it's a place wrapped up with all of those warm fuzzy feelings of lying on my living room carpet watching Lizzie McGuire with my sister and falling asleep in a twin sized bed in the adjacent room to my parents every night. But aside from it being the place where I grew up, I've found I have less and less of an attachment to it. I'm proud of my background but also sort of done with it at the moment. I don't really WANT to go home these days. I didn't even hesitate to not spend a summer there and all things considered, I didn't really miss IT all that much this summer. I just missed my family. I didn't really realize what a big change that was to the girl who started writing this blog as a senior in high school who was sad to leave home and came home far too many weekends her first semester of college. I wrote a little bit about that before I left for Seattle, too, but now I think I've come to see as well that my life IS in Montana now. I have been so happy and content in Missoula as the semester has started and it feels like my home right now. 

Anymore, I'd MUCH rather have my parents visit me than the other way around. I love showing them my life and I love introducing them to the people who make me want to stay in Missoula on weekends rather than go home. I love showing them where I eat brunch, my favorite place to run, and my favorite place to find greek yogurt on sale. Missoula is sort of the place that has raised me from teen adolescent into young adult. We skyped my little sister who is in Virginia this morning and by the time we said goodbye we all sort of sat there in a fog observing that where she lives now, too, is sort of the place that's raising her. She's growing up. We're both growing up. We're both past the LIzzie McGuire days.