My friend Justin is from Missouri, but somehow in college, he ended up hanging out with a lot of people from Wichita, including me. Last year for Spring Break he decided to come to my beloved hometown and see what I and all of his roommates love to preach as the best in Kansas.
I was so excited to show him all of the fun Wichita sites — the downtown area with spunky coffee shops, my best friend's house, the zoo, the new bars, all of it. While we were driving to these different places, however, I noticed that our conversations were almost never about the sites themselves. They were about the places we passed on the way that meant so much more to me. They were about Terry, my life long hair stylist and close family friend, who lived near the zoo.
They were about Jim and Marilyn, parents of a friend who have always been ready to crack a joke or just sit and chat. They were about the neighborhood across from mine that houses the Ebberwein's, the Rohleder's, The Demel's, and The Charlton's — all families who have tremendously impacted me. My best friend's tree house, where we took every awkward high school dance picture (pictured above).
Sometimes I'd end up telling a story that made me laugh so hard I couldn't actually tell it, all because we passed a certain Burger King. We drove through my high school parking lot, and I don't think he said a single thing. I talked the whole time about teachers and game days and where my friends ended up going to college.
The point here is that I was so excited to show Justin all of the cool places around Wichita, but I ended up being more excited to introduce him to people there and to share memories. When the break was over and we were loading up to head back to Manhattan, I realized how many souls in Wichita there were that had formed me and helped me get to where I am now.
Sure, the downtown coffee shops are great, and the Exploration Place will always be a fun place to go no matter how old I am, but in reality, if Wichita didn't have any of that, and just had the people living there, I would still love it just the same. I was blessed to grow up in such a great community, but I never would've realized how much that meant to me if I hadn't planned to show Justin everything else.
So, my advice this Spring Break is to skip the beach and bring a new friend home for the week — you'll appreciate it so much more.
