The Best Place On Earth

As the 24th celebrations near, I can feel myself getting homesick for my family and my little hometown of St. Johns, AZ. I can just imagine what I would be doing this week if I were there, surrounded by my eight siblings and their families, my grandparents, my parents, and my friends. The week would start out with my brothers and sisters trickling in from far-off places, cars loaded to the brim with children, food, and tents. We might go to the park for some football, or more likely just sit around chewing the cud. We would wake up each morning to the smell of sausage gravy and freshly-baked biscuits. My mom would be standing in the kitchen in unmatched stockings, wearing a home-made apron. That first night my big brother, Kevn, would take out his guitar and strum along as my sister and I sing old country songs.

As the week wears on, we would attend the ice cream social at the city park, where the whole town gathers for free ice cream and interaction among lifetime friends. I see my kindergarden teacher, my highschool principal, and my first boyfriend. Later, if it is cool enough, we might go to the fairgrounds where we would witness the most unique rodeo that has ever taken place. My brothers would win the cow-roping contest and take home fifty dollars, and my friends and I would most likely lose the grocery race, again.

This weekend, in St. Johns, I would try to talk the hubby into taking me to one of the three dances, where we could hear the live band that always plays a little Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, and Garth Brooks. Or we might just go for a walk under the most beautifully star-lit sky in the whole wide world.

Throughout all of this, I am surrounded by my eight best friends, laughing and enjoying the easiness of it all, of just being together and loving eachother, trying to forget that in just a few days we will have to say goodbye again until who-knows-when.

This is what I am homesick for,

and do you blame me?