Sometimes divorce is not just one’s parents separating, but
divorcing toxic people in your life. I
never knew that at 20 years old, so many people would have been removed from my
life. And quite frankly, at 22, life is
still changing as we speak. As someone
who held on to the fantasy that everyone I would ever meet in life would stay
forever, it has been a hard concept to grasp that you grow apart from
people. However, I believe that God will
replace what has been removed and it will be better than ever. Ever since my mom moved back to Florida, with
the exception of Christmas, I have always panicked at the thought of not having
plans for the holidays. This year was no
different.
I had
already planned on coming home from school to spend Easter weekend with my
sister so we could celebrate her birthday early since she’d be out of town on
her real birthday. I almost backed out
of it because I thought, “Why come home when you don’t have plans for the
holidays when you could just work all weekend?
Make more money girl!” I felt bad
for even considering backing out on my sister. What changed my mind was when she texted me
confirming that she was free for the outing I had planned for her. Well that locked my travel plans into
place. A few days after, I reached out
to a friend offering my story for a project that she is going to be working
on. I let her know that I would be in
town the following weekend and IMMEDIATELY, we (my sister, brother in law, and
I) were invited to the cookout!
So fast
forward to Easter Sunday, I went to church and had an amazing time catching up
with family friends. I hadn’t been to my
home church in months and it felt amazing to see everyone again. A few hours after church, we drove to our
friend’s house with my famous baked macaroni and cheese strapped in the back
seat! While the grill was going and
people were on their way, we entertained the kids and helped out where help was
needed. More friends began to fill the
home and it became a party. There were
babies everywhere, toddlers running outside with water guns, tons of Easter
eggs ready to be hidden for the egg hunt and a LOT, I said a LOT, of food! I honestly wish I would have gotten a picture
of all of the food we ate, but I was big hungry and it did not even cross my
mind to do so. We had beans, greens,
potatoes…okay let me stop playing!
To have
someone open their house up to you for the holidays, especially after wondering
what the heck you’re going to do, means so much, but it doesn’t surprise me. They pretty much know our family situation
right now and to be honest, I would have truly fallen into a dark place if it
were not for them, because seeing so many people post about what they are doing
with their family would have been a trigger for me. It reminds me of what used to be and is no
more. I don’t think the people who have
seen and liked the pictures from Easter realize how important it was to me. Not only were we welcomed into somebody’s
home, but we connected with other people who we either just met, or had met in
the past but were not close with, and then there were people that we did indeed
already know and are friends with. Either
way, nobody felt like a stranger.
We were the
last to leave and I was way too tired to even attempt to drive 2 hours back to
school. So I stayed one last night in KC
and got up extremely early to make it back to school. What I took away from this holiday was that
my friends have become my family. We all
came together to celebrate one holiday and it could not have gone any
better! We had great food, many laughs,
desserts and an amazing unfriendly game of NERTZ. If you don’t know what NERTZ is, it is a
personal game of solitaire and a collective game of speed going on at the same
time. I could show you better than I
could explain it. And I want a rematch
Nia! I could not have asked for a better
way to spend my Easter weekend 2k17 and I thank the Adgers for opening their
home to so many of us! By the way, I
totally jacked these photos from my their pages!
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