There's no place like home...

Although I live in the land of Dorothy and Toto, I don't have ruby slippers at my disposal.  Tonight, I really wish I did.  Because on May 9, 2012, I am going to do something "they" say you cannot - I am going home.  Back to the future in real time.  It seems "they" (whoever they are) are wrong.

For many years, home has been in two places.  Home will always be the farm where I grew up, and where my mother still happily resides.  Home has also been where I raised my children, and have lived for the last 17 years of my life.  But on May 1, this house goes up for sale, and I hope it will sell very quickly.  And on May 9 I will pull away from here with a load of belongings, and I will join my two homes into one place, both in my heart, and to lay down my head at night.

Between now and then, I have more packing, sorting, disposing of and selling to do than I ever thought possible.  Where did all this stuff come from?  It's incredible.

There is much that I will miss about living in Kansas City, all to do with the wonderful friends I am leaving behind.  But to spend the next few years seeing my mother every day, to be a part of my extended family happenings again, and to allow myself to be in a place where I find peace will be a blessing beyond measure.

Hello Minnesota.  I've missed you.  I'm coming home.

Procrastination indignation....

I have learned something about myself today.  Usually, self-actualization is a positive process, a way of gaining insight into one's own soul.  Unfortunately, this new revelation about myself does not exactly fall into that category.  It was not a positive piece of news, one that I could announce joyfully on facebook.  (Oh, I announced it, all right.  Just not joyfully.)  Because I have discovered that I Have A Flaw.

Hello, my name is Sarah, and I am a procrastinator.

Same old, same old? Not so fast....

I spent the last few days "At Home" in Minnesota on the farm where I grew up.  My brother Charlie, whom I haven't seen in awhile, is visiting our mom, and I wanted to spend some time with him.  So away I drove, out of the frying pan and into the freezer!

Although it has changed - buildings have worn out, some of them are even gone, the silo is but a shell these days and the windmill will never turn on it's squeaky axle again - much of it remains the same.  It is, in some ways, a bizarre time warp to go back and sleep in the same room where I spent my years of teenage angst, wondering where life would lead me.  It is probably a good thing I didn't know then what I know now, or I would never have had the courage to leave in the first place!

Lost in Oz...

I have been thinking this week about the shackles that bind us to our past, and how difficult it can be to break them open and run free from the things that keep us rooted in our previous experiences.

I imagine most people, when hearing the term shackle, think of being held captive in slavery.  I don't mean to diminish their experience or their pain, but I think there are other shackles that hold us as firmly in place as the metal cuffs placed on the wrists of the runaways seeking the freedom to live life on their own terms.  The fact that the freed slaves often chose to remain where they were speaks to the difficulty of overcoming our own expectations as eloquently as any words I could ever find.  Casting away what we know and moving freely into whatever the future holds for us is always complicated, and easily resisted.

Skinny is not a dirty word any more....

I am just going to say this once, but it's important, so listen up everyone.  If you want to feel good about yourself, find a pair of pants you don't currently fit into, lose enough weight to pull them on, AND, (this is the really mind warping part) ZIP THEM UP.  It is a guaranteed natural high which will have you short of breath and floating on air all day.  (Ideally, you should be short of breath from the joy of it all.  Of course, you also may be short of breath because to get them zipped, you now cannot sit or breathe, but I consider that a personal issue, and I'm not going there.)