Sometimes you have to go see the world to know there is nothing new under the sun and everything you were looking for was at home in the same small town you grew up in. With the friends who never left and the family you can now truly appreciate. The rest is just window dressing.
But I’m thankful I did. I am now more content with the simplest of things like having people to love and drinking clean water out of my hose. To walk alone in a grocery store and drive my own car through a fast food line. To have access to my family at all times, not searching different places on a hill just trying to get a few words in or calculating time zones. I’m thankful for going, but boy oh boy the joy it is to come back home with a fuller heart than the empty one I left with.
I have never felt this loved in my entire life. The way my friends have pursued me and stayed with me. My family's voice is now a comfort and the foreign sounds of country music take my heart back to the place in which it belongs. I know this was the Lord's plan all along not for me to necessarily make an impact but for Him to impact me. I know I will be a better mother, wife, daughter, cousin, and friend after this. I will be content with a small home, full of those I love, with even food to eat, and water to drink. Never wondering about what could have been because;I already did.