did we ever leave??

This last weekend, my husband was the chosen director/conductor for a state honor choir and he was amazing as always. The concert was actually held where we went to grad school together so I spent the day driving around and visiting all the old haunts and thrifting while he rehearsed.

It's strange how much a place can just transport you back- pull out memories- and make you smile or cry. I have not been there in almost 7 years and it is the SAME.

Although it was my very very easiest two years of school, it was also my hardest. I missed my girlfriends. I missed the theatre. I missed my old routine, my old city, my family.
I missed my boyfriend.

He was there with me, except he wasn't. While I had two years of academic coasting with self study, thesis writing and sleeping in, he had his most ridiculous, hardest and humbling two years ever. He was a very different A than I had known before and the whole experience was very hard on our relationship.
We questioned our plans, our paths and ourselves.

So really, it's strange, because I sure felt a lot of nostalgia for a place I liked so little. While driving and walking around with the old college breeze on my face I even saw our old landlady... seriously. She was in her truck smoking her same cigarette and wearing the same sour expression over her make-up.
My my my how the world keeps turning when you move on!

And that is why I think I smile on this place now, because even though it was a dim(mer) spot in my history, it marks an integral part of A and my relationship, crucial even...
This was the place where we realized our "perfect" romance has some faults. Where we thought about losing each other.
Where we didn't.
This place was where we stopped being kids and started life. Where we realized that a storybook is only interesting if the plot thickens and that true love stories can't end, but will certainly move forward.
This place was where we cast off our independence on each other but still clung to our future together- and that is a great place- comfortable in our our skins, strong enough to face a future alone, but better, much much better together!