On her last night in the nursery, Peter Pan came to take Wendy Darling away to Neverland so she wouldn’t have to grow up.
In a few short days, I’ll have my own “last night” in my parents’ house, then in the morning, I’ll be off to my first post-grad job in another state.
When I was a freshman in college, my mom lettered a quote for me: “Follow your own path of curiosity and wonder, and know that home will always be waiting.”
And it was. I went off to school at a university an hour-and-a-half away and lasted all of one semester before I was so sick with anxiety that I needed to return back to my hometown.
These last four years, I’ve gotten to know my family better than I had for the past 18. I was a tween with teenage angst. Everything my parents would say was met with an eye roll or sarcasm, everything my little sisters did annoyed me. I shut my family out and didn’t even know them very well, even though we lived together. In high school, I had better relationships with my parents and sisters, but still I was your typical 17-year-old who thinks at 18 everything will change and I would be gone. So when I found myself missing them like crazy when I went off to school, I knew if I was to come home, I needed to take advantage of our time together.
So I started saying “yes.” Yes, I’ll go to the air show. Yes, let’s go to the concert, to the movies, to the mall. Yes, I’ll drive you there. Yes, I’ll come to church with you. Yes, I’ll take the dog on a walk with you. Yes, I’ll do a project with you.
And in those “yes” moments, stronger bonds were formed. Even if I wasn’t particularly interested in the activity, just being together allowed for more conversations, more laughs, more memories. I’ve loved living at home again, because I’ve loved really getting to know these people I’ve been living with all my life.
Time moves on, even if many things remain the same. My 18-year-old sister is headed to college. My almost-15-year-old sister will be doing the same in a couple of years. I’m off to my job. Our parents will celebrate 26 years of marriage this fall, and my mom often talks about retiring to Asheville. Although I’ll deny and ignore it, our sweet dog is getting grey around his eyes.
So while home will always be waiting, our lives won’t be the same after this weekend. I’m not sure when the next time that we all wake up under the same roof will be. When will be the next time I'm there to greet my parents when they get home from work? Will the three of us girls ever sit at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning again, waiting for our mom to tell us it’s okay to come down? When will be the next time that I hear my dog scratching at my door in the morning, his way of asking to come in and snuggle?
If I’ve learned anything these past four years, it’s that little moments mean the most.
If I’ve learned two things, the second would be that family is everything... and mine is particularly great.
This is part one of a two part article. Click here to read part two.
