I was inspired late one night after spending time with some very dear friends I had grown up with but not spent time with in many years to write this. I had not spent a lot of time with my childhood friends and family that much in quite a few years. This being because of an out of town job that kept me gone from daylight to dark.
This family had just experienced a huge loss, something I knew all about. I was determined I was going to be there to help them get thru this hard time they were facing. I wanted to be there to support them in any way I could. I had just done the same thing they were going thru a little over two years prior. As I was there for them, who knew the whole time, they were really helping to heal me too. I wasn’t there to get the glory for myself. I just knew all to well what it was going to be like without having Daddy to come home to. I wanted to help them because I had just walked that hard road of losing my Daddy. Spending time with them just opened my eyes to what I had been missing for so long. The true sense of belonging some where and them just thanking me for my presence in being there with them. I didn’t have to do anything spectacular to help them. Just being there to be there for them. It felt good to know I mattered to them. It was just like I had never been away from them all those years.
With an aqua blue Sharpie marker, I was writing away as fast as I could while my tears were flowing uncontrollably. This was an enormous healing process for me. It helped me to close the door and wipe my feet on a lot of areas in my life. It also helped me to open other doors so that I could walk on thru. Being with them made me realize how important family and true friends really were. This was my first step in finding the old Windi I know but had hid her for way too many years just to fit an empty shell of a person to satisfy a lifestyle for someone else. It let me know that I really was okay just like I am. You see all the movies about people rediscovering the person they were years ago. Well, it is true because I am living proof.
I hope you enjoy…
There is a great difference in living and experiencing the small town life. You can live in a small town and never have time to really live it to its fullest. When you truly experience it, it leaves a foot print stamped on your heart and forever etched in your mind. It is about a front porch full of rocking chairs and swings. There is something about going back to a small town’s way of life that puts a whole new perspective on things. In a small town, people are glad to see you and they love you for who you are. Their love and friendship is not measured by the world’s accountability of a person’s financial worth. They accept you as who you are and what you are in your everyday life. It is not a matter of what kind of car you have, how big your bank account is, if you have the biggest house on the block, what kind of name tags are in your clothes. It is a matter of being your true self. The real person you really are way down deep inside. Not a character you have made yourself out to be so you can fit a make believe part just to impress someone else’s lifestyle. A small town loves the person who doesn’t hide behind a mask and is able to show the true side of life.
Living in a small town makes you appreciate what you have and you know it was earned thru blood, sweat, and tears. You are content with the things God has blessed you with and you aren’t trying to keep up with everyone else. You see the evidence all around you of everyone’s hard work to get and maintain what they have gained in life. It is not something to be flaunted. It is something to be respected. It is something that is usually passed down from generation to generation.
Getting that sense or feeling of home. Coming back to the roots that made you who you are. Where and why you became the person that you have become. The place that influenced your true character. The surroundings that made you believe in what a person should be. A place where you don’t have to wear a fake smile. You can let your guard down. You can let your hair down, tangles and all, and you won’t be condemned. You can be yourself and know that you aren’t going to be judged. You are accepted as you are. You are always welcome to come and visit, but you know you have to stay a while once you get there. It is a community pulled together with kindness, but is held together with the glue of the love for a neighbor. It is a place that supports you and praises you in the good times. It is a place that picks you up, cleans you off, sets you back up again, and pitches in to help you when you fall down.
In most families, there is a big old table on Sunday afternoons with a spread of food fit for a kings and his army. Usually that table is found at Granny’s house. The meal always had fried chicken, sweet tea, and home made biscuits. The rest of the menu tended to vary. But you had your family there and great memories were made each week.
It is the friend you can call on in the middle of the night. Knowing they will be there to get you out of a bind no matter how big or small. Then, when the task is completed, they expect absolutely nothing in return. It is where memories are made. It is where dreams are dreamed. It is where the young and the old can come together and be the same age. It is a place where you go to find that inner peace… a place of pure serenity!!! It is a place where you go to rediscover the person you used to be. You go in search of and you eventually find the real you…
Home... That is where you find your healing!!!
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