Home is Where the Heart is

         "Home is where the heart is". In this entry I'm going to be looking at that saying as a place and people that are around me, not just the people. When this saying is said, most people think about family, which is true but I'm going to talk about a place that I feel like it is home to me. There are some little parts of MO that still feel like home to me like down in the southwest but if you look at my life it isn't truly where I spent most of my time at but either is where I call home now.
          My family doesn't stay in one spot and I love them for that but as a child it made it hard to call a place home. Being the second to youngest, I probably moved more then my sibling. Yes, some of them moved three schools.....Ok, that doesn't beat me but hopefully you get my point. These past 3, almost 4, years Bentonville, AR has been and felt like home to me.
          I have started something Bentonville and grown more in everything then I can remember anywhere else. Dinfantly, grown more in Christ. I've had different experiences that I thought I would never have in my life. Met a lot of different people. I don't want to move again and get rid of everything. I came here for a purpose and to be different from everyone that I knew. To show everyone, that I could do some things on my own. I've been doing pretty good on that but know this whole going back to college thing is getting to me because I have to go back to MO to get the degree I want to get.
          I also think that this whole changing thing is making me sad a lot too. I tend to want to change my life when some bad happens in it and today it just hit me. Yes, I am not making the money I want to or can move up in my job but those aren't the reasons I want change. This past Nov. an old friend of mine passed away and I have had a lot of pressure of moving back to MO. Now I know that the person putting the pressure on me cares a lot about me and wants me to be safe and close to her but it is hard on me. In a funny way, I do want the house and farm if I ever get the chance but I'm not counting on that. When she was talking about moving, after her husband (old friend) passed away, I was worried. I didn't want her to move away from that house.
           That house was the only house that I could go back to and feel like I was home. That house was really was my heart was. I spent the first 4 years of my life there and then went back every summer until high school. Even now, when I go back to visit her and when her husband was sick, I felt like I was home. Yes, it was strange and is strange that her husband isn't there anymore but at least I still have her. It felt like something was missing when I went to see her over Christmas break. I mean his chair and everything was in his spot but he wasn't there sitting in it like I remember. I could just picture myself as a little girl on his lap playing with the dogs and laughing.
               I know he would be proud of me whether I got my Master's or not because either way I would be helping children which he loved to do too. I stopped going to see both of them like I said in high school but starting going back after college and it was then that I started to feel like a little girl again. It was then that all the memories and feelings came back to me. The ones I have missed for so long. The calm and strong feelings but yet most of the time the sweet and happy feelings. Laughing, playing, and walking in the woods like there was no tomorrow. Without a care in the world.
               In a strange way, I probably was and still am a little, country princess to them because I still feel that way when I go to visit. I am in my castle and go on adventures in my woods behind the castle while helping with early morning chores.  They would also spoil me rotten and then send me home to my mom and dad. Wouldn't it be strange to have a little girl of my own with those same exact feelings? That is my big dream and heart's desire. It is above everything else on my list of things to do in life.
               I just thought I needed to write another entry and these were the thoughts on my mind today as I was driving around Bentonville. Strange I know but sometimes God shows you what matters most in the strangest of ways. Today was one of those strange day and way.