when i think of home

"when i think of home, i think of a place where there's love overflowing" ~ the whiz

i'm not much of a crier, but when i do the flood gates sure do fly open wide.  as i drove away from the "club house" where much life has been celebrated together with my dilworth refugees, i couldn't help but shed some tears.  it was my going away party at jenny and sally's and i was in denial.  these people had become my family.  why did i decide to take a new job that would make me move away from them?

i was scared.  scared that they'd forget me.  scared that i would feel alone in indianapolis.  scared that i wouldn't be able to find people in my new city who cared about me as much as they did.  but then sally said something that i can still hear crystal clear, now months later: "well you didn't know us when you moved to charlotte, either!"

i have been so blessed in my life.  i have friends in my life that i've known since we were three years old together.  i grew up with incredible friends in middle school and high school who gave me such grace through every awkward stage and stuck with me long enough to see me through to the other side.  i remember being at a party sometime around graduation when brad made the comment that we would all be friends forever.  i also vividly remember nate and i laughing at him and telling him that he was crazy, but i guess he was right.  not many people can say that they've been friends this long, but when you grow up in a place like coshocton, ohio with friends like mine, well, you can't help but stick together for life.  it's like your souls are eternally stitched together somehow.

i went to college out of state where nobody i knew would be attending.  for the first two weeks, i called my parents every day and begged them to cross the border into this wretched land of west virginia and bring me home.  it was horrible and i didn't have a car to escape.  eventually though, my roommate kelly talked me into going through recruitment and i joined the wonderful world of sorority.  through experiencing this with kelly i met phenomenal women who continue to teach me what it is to be a woman of purpose to this day.  again, these were friends who gave me grace as i tried to figure out what kind of woman i would become.

after college kara and i moved to charlotte on a whim.  sure, we had each other but we weren't quite sure what we were getting into.  shortly after moving, we reconnected with old college acquaintances who quickly became the best of friends and the infamous "char-latte crew".  then, after a few months, i finally landed a job at a church where i met the equally infamous "dilworth refugees".  both groups of friends became my stronghold in charlotte.  they were my family for so many holidays when i couldn't make it back to ohio.  we joined together for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, births and even deaths.  i will never forget the people at grandpa's funeral staring at the gorgeous flower arrangement with the card that was signed "havaleh's refugees".  on a day when i felt like my world was ending, my crazy friends could somehow still make me giggle.

on the side, i was pursuing a graduate degree.  slow and steady was the pace, but through those five years i met some truly fantastic people.  people who are challenging the  relevance of the church and challenging young people to get off their asses and take ownership for their own faith stories.  people who challenged me to be a better professional and a better person.  people who somehow made group projects enjoyable and caused eight hour classes to race by in a breeze.

then came the misenheimer years.  in so many ways, my time in the village can best be described as a holding pattern, but then again it was also a place of self-discovery.  it was in the village that i met three women, who although they all hold a dear place in my heart and share the same name, touched my life in very unique ways.  rich was already constantly making fun of me for having too many katies in my life, but adding katie, katy, and katie to the list when i moved to misenheimer was well worth the ridicule.  each woman let me info her life and allowed me to be fully me, no matter what the circumstance.  in addition to the katie/ys were the wonderful colleagues  and students at pfeiffer who made the 15 hour work days not only bearable, but entertaining and enjoyable.  they were more than just people i knew at work, they are soul friends for life.

so, as the indianapolis chapter of my life begins i look forward to getting to know the newest cardholders of "havaleh's friends for life" exclusive membership program.  one day soon, indianapolis will feel like home but just like every other city i've moved to, well it takes a while...