It's Really not so bad

I drove past my old house yesterday. Actually the pit of house that smelled horrendous, had caving in ceilings, awful matted down, stained, ruined carpet and NEVER felt like home to me is gone. The people who bought the foreclosed on horrible wreck tore it down and created the horse pasture and stables that my mom always dreamed of having when she bought that property. I hated living there. I hated almost every moment of that time period of my life. High school was horrible for me. Home life was pretty unbearable. I spent a good 10 years of my life feeling homeless, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere and just dreaming (quite blindly) of a day when I would have a home.

Funny thing though I drove past the old property and the bad parts that seemed to consume me during that time of my life were't the memories that surfaced. Instead I looked at the horses grazing where our house used to be and I remembered the glorious smell of fresh cut grass, the hot dry dust that would cling to my skin as I'd sit on the tractor mowing for hours on our 2 acres of land; the feeling of accomplishment and pride and pure joy that I always received from a job well done after mowing our emense lawn (consisting of basically all weeds). I remembered tackling the wild black berry briers in the back field where I'd escape life and sing and pray and be alone in an almost secret garden of my very own. That feild is one of the only places I found sanctuary during that time. As I drove past the old property I remembered everything good that happened there. The bad things really didn't jump out to haunt me.

I passed by the old place with a small smile and continued on to my destination. I drove the same route I'd taken to school every single day for 4 years. I HATED school, despised every moment of it, and skipped alot of it. I drove that path over and over and over again as if I were stuck in a never ending prison. Life during high school seemed like it would never go anywhere. I was so trapped and miserable. I never imagined that there would actually be a day when I'd no longer have to drive that God forsaken path again. Well, I've avoided that path for almost 13 years. I broke free from it's clutches. It has no power over me. Funny thing though, I drove it yesterday and yes, I really could only remember the good moments. Moments after school had let out, moments with the windows down, the music blaring and really good friends riding along the old country roads with me. I remembered the beauty of those untamed pathways, headlights shining on the long uncut vegetation reaching out over the edges of the gravel shoulder, bugs by the thousands sparkling in the gleaming headlight beams on dark nights, and the stars, the magnificent blanket of never ending stars that you really only saw when you were out there in the country away from the city lights. There were good times there along that path I used to despise so adamantly.

I have to giggle a tiny bit now. I know that I was miserable for years while living in that prison. But I returned for a brief moment and the only memories that really stood out were the beautiful ones. I guess what I realized during that little trip down memory lane is that no matter how awful things may seem there really is beauty in the ashes. It's really not so bad. Life is actually pretty great when you stop and look at the millions of magnificent tiny little things that it has to offer.