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I returned back to the Detroit area for a bit of Christmas festivities as well as celebrating the fact that my twin sister is engaged and getting married in October. I was excited to be back but I didn't realize how safe I would feel now that I am back. It's nice to be surrounded people who really know you and love you even despite your crazy new ideas or schemes. It has been an interesting few days being shuffled around, seeing friends who are like family, seeing children's eyes light up with the thought of Santa, the twinkling lights off a woman's jacket on stage at the church where you first saw what Christ could do with your life, sitting at a party surrounded with people who once knew you better than yourself and now talking jobs, babies, and marriage. Life is interesting once you have your high school prom. It seems as if they groom you for that day and then say well we did our part....

It reminded me of the movie Garden State so I found the best couple of lines from the film:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

I used to really believe this and buy into the thought but I really do have an amazing family that really has moved past who we were, maybe it's that I have finally grown up a bit, or maybe it's that we know that there is another home for you someplace else. I don't know what it all means but I do know that I saw the snow lightly falling through the light beams of my parents Jeep as I drove through quiet streets, some moments the only driver on that lowly stretch of land. It's rare when that happens. I don't know what went through my head but I wanted to hear a song about snow and there it was, Harry Connick Jr. reminding me that he wanted to snuggle by the fire with the one he loved as he declares, "Let It Snow."

Okay....life's still soft moments remind me that life is often hard and overwhelming but then there are the moments that are good and remind you what it's all about. Life sometimes can surprise you and today it did....for the good. So I will listen to the wind blow the cold snowy air and remember what it was like to be a kid living in metro Detroit and smile because it was lovely.