Hello.

     In August of 2006 I boarded a one-way flight bound to Portland, OR. Two thousand miles and four and a half years later I find myself here in Portland, a place now as familiar as small town Texas once was.

These last years were what I left Texas in hopes of finding. I've found a home here, home with people once mere acquaintances, now family.  Home in once unfamiliar chilly sky and northwest rain, now old-aged friends.  

     I learned quickly that life does in fact go on without me, a myth I once regarded to be false. Also that my life does not suspend while away. As children, teenagers and even young adults we dream of those days when we’ll be as old as Sam and Cindy until you realize that you are Sam and Cindy and then you see what it’s like to really live as Sam and Cindy. I do not wish to be older than what I am nor do I wish to be anywhere other than where I am. But what I failed to understand when I was younger I am beginning to understand now. For example, did you know that groceries are expensive? Or that it actually costs a reasonable amount of money to go on vacation? Or that you can’t just take off work if you don’t feel up to it? These are the myths I subscribed myself to when I was younger. Even still, as I grew up and slowly assimilated myself with the greater world there were still (and are) things hidden from my view.

     Three years into college, as the novelty of the big city and the independent life began to wear away I learned a little more about the unspoken areas of Sam and Cindy that I never recollected from my dreams.

 As visits home to Texas became less frequent and while the changes there seemed too numerous to count, it was then that I began to realize that life truly does go on without me. And while that may sound a bit naive, it’s an issue that we all face at one point or another especially as we age and our family begins to center around the new life we create for ourselves. While sitting on the 2006 flight next to a brother who continued to make bomb jokes so as to redirect my teary eyes, I was simply looking toward my college life, to the appeal Hollywood presents it to be of course. I knew that life would in fact continue in Texas while I was gone, but I didn’t quite understand the feelings that would soon accompany it. I once never understood what it was like to lose family members without a goodbye or how awful it feels to miss milestones of your cousins, sister’s and brother’s lives. Even those family baseball games and those get togethers for no other reason than because you simply can.  Despite newly found understanding, understanding does not make it easier. It’s this aspect of adulthood that I failed to recognize when I was younger, even when I first began college. So while I miss all of you spread across the states and across that big ol' ocean and while some days may at times seem longer than others, this is the path that I have chosen to take and the Northwest is where I need to be for now.

      I miss everyday encounters with many of you and having a better understanding of each of your lives as you understand them to be. It is hard to be so far away and to maintain communication with all of you, but I want you to know that I love you all and I think about you often. I’m not fond of blogs myself. I like to read other’s posts, but maintenance of my own seems awfully painful. “Those who don’t blog, water their plants,” and my plants would be very healthy had I not had to leave them in Juneau. But I must admit, this technological advancement is beneficial to moms the world over. 

So, I write this all in hopes of providing for you a greater insight into my own life. 

I love you all,

April