Coming home

Tomorrow I'm going home to Athens. 

I don't know if words can describe how much excitement, anticipation, and joy that phrase brings me. I've lived in many towns, apartments, and states, but I didn't find my first true "home" until I was 17. It's not that my family didn't provide that space for me. Believe me, I have never felt unloved when living with my parents or sister, but what was created at Ohio University was something different entirely.

I met friends who became sisters. I shared rooms, struggles, late nights, meals, dance parties, and hopes and dreams with women who loved me, challenged me, accepted me, and daily pointed me to Christ. 

By the time we were Juniors I never went a day without seeing at least three of them - four of us lived together and the other four visited with such frequency that they were considered honorary roommates for the two years we lived in our apartment. Even when I felt alone and believed no one would care that was never the case. We called ourselves the "Sister Coaches" and we were fierce.

The Sister Coaches L to R: Sarah, Meredith, Hilary, Danielle, Michelle, Me, Katie, Leah

These are the women who taught me to love through the tough stuff. They taught me how to celebrate, and celebrate we did! For the first time in my life I was free to be me. I have quirks and habits or emotions that I am less than proud of, but that didn't matter with these women. Nothing was too small or too big to be brought into these relationships, and I believe my life today was 100% shaped by the time I spent at home in Athens with them.

More than six years have passed since we were all in Athens together. We have attended weddings together, celebrated babies, and sent each other off to foreign countries. I may not talk to them as often as I would want, but that does not lessen the impact each one of them had or has on me today. These are some of my first "people", one of my first tribes, and they will always hold a space in my heart.

This post is therapeutic for me. It feeds my need for nostalgia. And it allows me to say things I've kept inside for too long. To all of you, thank you for making me feel at home for four years. Thank you for being the reasons I missed Athens uncontrollably whenever I was away. I miss all of you. And I wish we all could go home together.

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." 

Phillipians 1:3-6