What I Will Miss

I cried when I left my home state of Connecticut. I sniffled as we packed the ABF moving truck with what few items my husband of four months and I had crammed into our studio apartment. We slipped and slid on an ice-coated driveway as we loaded an old oak dresser, a well-worn loveseat (where we shared our first kiss), and a Bed Bath & Beyond microwave table that doubled as a T.V. stand onto the rickety truck.

And then, without speaking, we got into our cars and drove south. I felt a dull ache as the rolling snow-covered hills gave way to warm sweet air and green flat lands. I barely noticed the beauty of the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and the long stretches of cotton fields in Georgia. I was thinking about the creak of my grandmother’s wooden basement stairs, the smell of roast beef and blueberry pie.

Through homesick eyes, the South was an ugly inhospitable place. And, I knew what I would miss about New England.

Clear sparkly layers of ice on thin tree branches; fields of unevenly shaped pumpkins; the smell of wet leaves; the crunch of ice beneath warm fuzzy boots; the first warm day of Spring when ice gives way to slush, mud and the promise of long warm summer days filled with convertible rides and camping trips. I was leaving behind cool summer evenings full of laughter; winter mornings blanketed in quieting snow; and the windy hilly roads of my childhood.

I was leaving friends whom I had met on the playground at primary school, who had talked me through high school break ups, with whom I had navigated an awkward adolescence and who stood by my side in tacky and tight-fitting blue matching dresses as I married the love of my life.

After ten years of living in Tallahassee, Florida, I never stopped missing these things and people. But now as I pack our home – the place where we brought our daughter home from the hospital after her birth; where we argued about money, time and space– the negotiations of two people becoming one family; where we spent days on the Gulf of Mexico playing in the most beautiful azure waters I have ever seen; where we bought our first house, and spent a year working side-by-side peeling wall paper, painting and replacing flooring, sinks and countertops ; and where we mapped out our life together rocking in wooden chairs on hot summer nights while cicadas buzzed around us – I know what I will miss.

Brightly colored spiders that instinctively meander around implements of relocation; baby frogs no bigger than the tip of my pinky finger; shady canopy roads that drip with Spanish Moss; wild dolphins that jump and chatter in the wakes of speed boats; men with friendly smiles wearing worn out jeans who communicate "Hello," “I like you,” "You are crazy," and "I am angry" with just one word, "Ma’am;" gas-station pecan logs and sweet tea on long road trips; church signs that read things like "download your problems to the Lord;” conversations with complete strangers that begin with, "oh, honey" and end with "bless your heart’" and most of all long lunches with girlfriends who have helped shape my career and mend my ego, who have became invaluable mentors and who can make me laugh so hard that I cry.

In just a few days, I will drive the same route that I drove ten years ago; this time from South to North. I will pass the cotton fields and the mountains and the long stretches of flat green land with a new appreciation of home, the one waiting for me in the North and the one I am saying goodbye to just 1,000 miles south.