To Pennsylvania, Virginia and back again

This past weekend Rob, Luke, and I made the long trek across Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to my childhood home in order to then go down to Harrisonburg,Virginia to celebrate with Ben at his college graduation from Eastern Mennonite University.

I've found that no matter how many times I make that drive it never gets shorter. It always seems too that the construction in certain parts never makes much progress and we always hit the same traffic around Columbus. But it's ok and we always eventually get there with out much trouble.

You'll see from these pictures that Ben's graduation was warm and sunny and very nice. We all enjoyed our time together as a family, the first since Christmas. Virginia was in full spring, bursting with leafy trees and multitudes of lilac bushes. Harrisonburg is surrounded by mountains, something I definitely miss living in Indiana.

Being in Pennsylvania again made me realize how much I miss it there. It's so beautiful there and my parents house is safe and familiar. Whenever I'm there I always take time to wander around and look at things. I trail my fingers along worn banisters and stare at the familiar family photos (albeit some pretty embarassing ones of me from years ago!) and the new photos of friends and family my mom keeps updated on the fridge. I eat lots of my parents food and constantly marvel at how my mom makes the simplest things so beautiful. That home is the keeper and protector of hundreds of thousands of memories and it's like they all come flooding over me every time I'm there crying out to be remembered.

Indiana is becoming more familiar and safe too, but I still feel caught between the two places and can't quite figure out where home is still. I want it to be both places and it can't be. I think it's all part of the growing up process and that's good and healthy to move on. I know wouldn't want to be there away from Rob and my dear friends here in Indiana still living with my parents.

But there are some days when I want nothing more than to curl up in my childhood bed and wrap all those memories around me like a warm blanket. I suppose though that's why we have different seasons of our lives -- to enable us to move on and make new memories knowing that they are shaped by our old ones.

I can't wait to take my children to my Pennsylvania home someday, Lord willing, and let them make memories of their own there. And then we'll get in our car (NOT a minivan -- I refuse to ever drive a minivan :) and drive all the way across those long, long states, home to Indiana.