You can't take the Midwest out of the girl...

For the last few days I have been feeling more homesick than usual. Perhaps it’s the number of birthdays I’m missing in the end of April, the fact that I know spring is looking toward summer days in America, or that I’ve actually been busy and unable to really reflect on things until they jump out and surprise me. Whatever the reasons, I’m missing home to a higher degree than I’ve ever felt in all my time living away from home.

Feeling homesick to me is like having a major part of yourself not in sync. You feel out of step, out of place, left behind. That part of you is still attached to somewhere across the ocean and the connecting thread is being played like a guitar string, lurching and swaying, it pulls you off course. For me, the feeling of homesickness is being able to close my eyes and the first thing I see is open highway with the cattle grazing fields stretching out to the horizon. It’s seeing Buffalo Wild Wings and Hollywood 14 theaters. The taillights and streetlights on Wannamaker Boulevard. The long drive up to North Topeka past all the familiar turn-offs and houses, signs and sights that I always thought trivial but are a part of where I come from.

A lot of this recent bought of homesickness is just missing the people in my life. Usually most of the ache is for Colt, a feeling that I have long come to terms with even though it never really gets any better. But this thing lately is a lot bigger than that. Missing him is there, sure, it always is. The last few days, though, I’ve been missing my mom, my dad, Jeni and Stephen, Oliver, Zach and Lucas, Skyler, and especially Josh. My family. Maybe it’s because I feel like we’re once again on some sort of transitional brink and I cannot be there to be a part of it. Maybe it’s because Zach is a teenager now which seems like some overwhelming dive off a cliff into new territory, a slap in the face to how fast time really has gone by. A lot of it is Josh, making big decisions about his future. How I wish I could be there to be a part of those choices. For me, a lot of homesickness often feels suspiciously like guilt. It’s been five years since I’ve lived in Kansas for any length of time and my family dynamic has learned to function without me in it. Of course that’s exactly what is supposed to happen when you grow up. But I feel left out so often, forgotten. And then I just feel guilty when I realize it’s my own fault.

I miss my friends, too. My college friends in a different way from my high school friendships that I have maintained and the new home friendships I’ve built. There’s an assumed fierce independence with my college friends. We’re all out doing amazing awesome things like Teach for America and law school. We don’t really have time to be overly sentimental. We all come from very different regions in the world, too, so there’s no guarantee that our long distance friendships will ever be more than that. There’s a few people I really miss, but college is different than those friendships built up and kept strong for ten years or more.

A lot of my high school friends are also doing amazing things. Graduations, getting real live grown-up jobs, getting married, having babies. Most of those friendships are either strong enough to not worry about too much or have faded over the years of me being so far away from home. A few have rekindled after a few years of absenteeism. Several I have just plain neglected. I’ve also built a few new friendships, mostly through Colt, but still important to me, especially looking to the future (Sydney!). Right now I’m really missing Jen, Aaron, Megan, and Mal. I found some old photos of us from the fall of 2008 and was in tears. I’m not a super sentimental person, but I miss just hanging out and being ridiculous. I’ve never had to pretend to be anyone I wasn’t for them. Finding friendships like that is rarer than you might think and I’m realizing that I’ve taken them for granted for a long time.

The people and the places make up the part of me still tied to Kansas. I facebook surf every few days and am constantly reminded of the way it feels to be home, doing the simple things that just don’t exist here and aren’t missed until they’re gone. So I’m taking stock right now! Here’s what I miss most about home:

Meeting a friend for coffee at starbucks, getting dinner at a bar and grill, BWW, good wine, driving through the countryside with the windows rolled down and the radio blaring, playing on a playground, Gage park, the early Italian brunch at Paisano’s with Colt, Papa Murphy’s cheese pizza, sushi from HyVee, walking up Mass Ave in Lawrence, incense, air conditioning, fresh cut grass, sunflowers, Mallory and Zach and their awesome house, going for a long run in crisp morning air, Chipotle, movie theater popcorn, the fluffy, cuddling, Colt’s mischievous smile, premade clothes and department store smells, Candyopolis, Taco Bell cheesy bean and rice burritos, youtube videos on mom’s iphone with Zach and Lucas, my living room and the people sitting in it, cooking with a full kitchen, cupcakes, making cookies with the kids, visiting Wichita and seeing Jeni and Stephen and Oliver and Dad, playing in Dad’s lab, champagne, Aaron Dean Senne, Juice Stop blueberry and banana smoothies, feeling cold, kisses, Barnes and Nobel, easy internet access, quiche and salad at Annie’s with Sydney, sexy cars, the fabulous Megan Greening and Olive Garden lunches with my favorite ladies, girl talk with Kira, dinners at Colt’s parents house, laying out looking up at the stars in the summer, Kansas sunsets, political protests and civic action, super Walmart and giant Dillons, Skyler and the Sunflower house, everything else about Lawrence, my amazing mom, high heels, wearing contacts and dressing up, feeling clean from head to toe, Jennifer Long, anonymity, football on TV, Cold Stone Creamery, fake meat, cheese, the apartment, Dan and Nick, video games, watching Netflix movies with dinner, enchiladas, snow, Josh and his leather jacket, open fields surrounded by old barbed wire fences, antiques, the way my house smells like home, everything else about Colt Sellens.

I wanted to leave Kansas for so long, to get out, get over the rainbow. I wanted so badly to do the great things I am doing now in Africa, live how I am living with the people I have made my friends. I don’t regret my choices, but I am surprised at how much I feel connected to America, to Kansas. It’s almost like I never expected to feel pride at calling where I come from “home,” but I am proud and I really do miss it with more intensity than I ever have or thought I would. I think I’m growing up a little bit, appreciating my background a little more, giving more credit to the people and the place that made me who I am. That doesn’t mean I ever want to actually live in Topeka again. But being close enough to visit sounds pretty okay to me.