5/14/2003 12:38:18 PM | Natalie Nester]
So, here I am in Nashville. I'm all moved in to a cozy room in the lower level of a townhouse. I'm about to go mattress shopping because sleeping on my therma rest on the floor all summer just isn't gonna cut it this time. It's so great to be here. I can't believe that the summer has already arrived. I'm here in a new place where I know no one except the man I love. Maybe I'll make some new friends, maybe I'll make lots of money, maybe I'll spend lots of quality time sitting in a chair in my little room getting lost in a book I've been dying to read since I began college and just didn't have the time. Who knows
It's a crazy thing I tell you. While I'm in CO MO all I can think about is getting out, getting away and doing something much more worth while, hence the title "Anywher But Here" I want something bigger, something better, more useful, more exciting, yet when I leave, I can then see how much I truly have there in that sleepy little nowhere town. I have a great house with hard wood floors, and pictures on the mantle and staircase, and a cat named Ally that I've grown to love a pathetic amount. More importantly I have amazing friends, who've become more like sisters. It may sound so cliche but it's true. Sharing my life among 5 others is amazing and I miss it already. I really think I'm getting this nostalgic over the whole thing because this is a preview of the distant but ever-nearing future. I'm getting married. I'm in Nashville for the summer now, but after January it will be home. All of these amazing friends will all be in one place for that final semester, and I plan to ween myself from them by making the 6.5 hour drive at least once a month. But then, everyone graduates, everyone goes on to the bigger and amazing things God has for them out there, away from there. Home will no longer be Columbia Missouri, it will be Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Texas, Nashville, LA, Colorado. Asia, Europe, Chile, Jamaica....Only the Lord knows and I'm thankful for these small glimpses of perspective. I become so dissatisfied with the status quo util it is changed. Then I take the time to look back, to ponder the aching hole in my heart and it's then I realize what is always before me, and what will always be a part of me.
So, I digress. I am here, in a new place, like a little girl on the playground at a new school for the first time. Will anybody talk to me? Will anybody want to play? I guess we'll see. I do know where my foundation lies and it is firm and steady. If you're reading this, you are a part of that and it's wonderful to see so clearly today. Until tomorrow...
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