Surprised by Joy: Hometown Reunions

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Hometown Reunions

Like I said, last weekend was wild. I've thought a lot about how I could effectively communicate the fullness of it via blog, but it'd be impossible and boring to 98% of my readership. I grew up in the wonderful city of Stephenville, Texas from ages 5-16. It was a good, small-town Texas upbringing which I adored. Stephenville is the epitome of small town Texas in many ways-- lots of farmers, cows, cowboys, trucks, and high school football reigned. I've waxed poetic on the blog many times before about the idea of home, so I'll spare you this one. :) I'll just say that being with my childhood best friends again, most of whom I hadn't seen in about 10 years, was so amazing. For one, I feel like they know me because they know where I'm from. They know parts of my life that I really haven't talked about in those 10 years since I've been gone. We laughed over funny old memories and caught up on all the juicy gossip of everyone we've ever known (and boy was some of it juicy!).

The reason for the reunion was that my childhood best friend was getting married, much like happened about this time last year. It was mainly a reunion for the three of us pictured below, and for three kids who grew up as best friends, our lives couldn't have turned out much more different. You know that I ended up being the "adventurous" world traveler and rolling stone, Leighann ended up more or less staying in Stephenville, and Marky (he's gone by Marc for more than 10 years, but he'll always be Marky to me) has been living in LA as an actor for 7 years. So this was truly an interesting reunion. :) All in all, it was wild, funny, and one of the most interesting weekends I've ever had. It's good to remember where you came from and those who helped form who you are today. It's like the old Girl Scout song says, "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other's gold."