My Happy Place

I think everyone has a great fondness for their college years.  For me, when I think of those precious years of undergrad, my heart yearns for Blacksburg and that carefree life.  Granted, I thought I was busy and stressed then, but I was only responsible for myself and could come and go as I pleased.  I could invest my time in relationships and in quiet time with no interruptions.  I felt an undeniable sense of freedom and at the same time a heartfelt sense of belong.

A few weekends ago I went to a Hokie football game with one of my best college friends.  We lived together for 2 1/2 years and spent many a college football game sitting next to each other.  While our amazing husbands watched the kids we walked to the stadium, caught up on life together, and cheered on our Hokies.  It was like coming home.

Then last weekend we traveled to Blacksburg with my bother and sister in law and their two kids.  All four of us are Tech grads, so we took our kids to the duck pond, and then drove around campus and town hoping someone in a car seat would take a nap while we reminisced.  I remembered how I felt when my parents drove away, when I first walked into BCM trying to make new friends, apartment hunting with my roommates, starting to date Jay, working in my first classroom, learning how to cook with my roommates, and ultimately getting engaged, married and starting grad school at Tech.

I lived in Blacksburg for 5 years and I am not the same person because of it.  That place and those people molded me and shaped me into a person that learned how to serve, how to be an adult, and how to do life.  When we first started looking for jobs post graduate school, Jay and I thought God was leading us to stay in Blacksburg.  He was done with school but I had one more year.  The jobs didn't quite open up and God led us instead to a quiet town where Jay grew up.  Now I am thankful.  If I still lived in Blacksburg, I don't think I would appreciate it for what it is to me and to my family.

With one child chatting to herself and waving out the window and another snoring in his carseat, Jay and I had this conversation as we drove around the drill field.

Me: Do you miss it?
Jay: Yeah. Do you wish you could go back?
Me: Yeah. I would do it all exactly the same again.
Jay: Me too.