Moving home…. To a SMALL town. My hometown.

There’s nothing like it. Everywhere I go, there are people I know.

Literally.

I walk out my back door and see straight across the fence to the deck where my Grade 9 homeroom teacher enjoys the weather with his lovely wife.

Or I walk out my front door and see the house owned by a guy I went to high school with, where a group of them gather every Friday to play poker.

Or just next door – a wonderfully complicated family connection because that’s the way my family rolls. Family through and through.

Small town. Hometown.

The same grocery store.

The same bank.

The same pharmacy.

The park, the farmer’s market, the festivals.

Every little bit of it is the same.

Driving the roads from here to there, I realize my kids will know the same roads.

Talking with family friends out and about, I realize my kids will call them family friends too.

This year my son will go to the same little school I did, taught by the same woman who taught me.

This is home.

The home I didn’t even know I wanted.

Where I thought life was too simple and opportunities too sparse.

And where, truth be told, I thought it was stupid to stay, judging those who did.

Where I thought minds were closed and culture was absent

The home I had walked away from, in search of something bigger, better. In search of more.

And yet here we are, in my little hometown.

With our lives bursting with play, connection and joy.

Surrounded by love.

And now I know, this small town is everything we need.

xo parrish

 

 

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