~he was right~

With only a few days left before returning to school, I've spent part of this day cleaning up around the house and taking care of things that I've let go all summer.  One of the first chores of the day was to dust off shelves in the living room that hold special things that I've collected over the years.  One of those was a box that contains all of the cards and letters that Mike and I received when we were married 3 years ago on May 21, 2013.

It's a special box that we bought in Grand Junction, Colorado with one purpose in mind.  We wanted to have a place to store all of the happy memories of our wedding and the greeting cards that were given to us by our friends and family back there in Kansas.  It was filled to the brim after that day and I remember sitting with Mike at my old dining room table back in Hutchinson as we read the cards and messages that were written.  Right before we left for our new life in Colorado, I tucked that special floral wrapped box into my car and I nestled it safely between some other things in the back seat.  I didn't want to ever lose track of it.  That box contained the sweet greetings of people that I had grown to love and care deeply about.  I couldn't take those folks with me to the mountains but I could read their messages from time to time.

It's no big secret that my first two months in Colorado were pretty much awful.  I was so lonesome and homesick for Kansas that most days I just cried when it became all too overwhelming.  I learned pretty quickly that you just can't up and leave a place that you've spent most of your life in and expect to settle into a new life without a little bit of consternation.  57 years of my existence here on planet Earth were spent in the very same county in south central Kansas.  Now,  611 miles and one huge mountain range stood in between the life I used to know and the one I was now experiencing.  Often times when I would get so homesick that I thought my heart would break, I'd remember that special box filled with such lovely memories.  Every once in a while I would open it up and read a card or two but that was it.  The tears would come to my eyes too quickly and so I would have to put the lid back on it.  I couldn't bear the thought of how far away those people were, even though the distance could have been so much further.

It wasn't like I had moved to Rhode Island or something.

Luckily for me, Mike was more than patient and kind.  He understood what was troubling me and never once did he take it personally.  He encouraged me to just take little baby steps towards getting used to life in a new place that really seemed more like a foreign country than my home state's next door neighbor.  All summer long I would take a couple of those steps forward and sometimes a half of a step backwards but I kept trying.  Little by little, it did get better and by the time the fall arrived, I was doing so much better that I often opened up that box and read more than a note or two.  Sometimes I just plain dumped the contents of that box out onto our bed and enjoyed rereading their kind messages over and over again.  I did well with only an occasional tear falling from time to time.

I grew as a person that summer.
I counted it as progress when I had to stop and think about when the last time was that I said "I miss Kansas.  I want to go home!"

I found that box again this morning as I was cleaning and I stopped to once more dump out its contents onto the spare bed and smiled when I realized just how long ago it had been.  Mike and I have been married for more than 3 years now.  Much has changed for us since that day back at Lincoln Elementary School in Hutchinson, Kansas where we were married in front all the kids, teachers, friends, and our families.  We no longer live where the mountains come between us.  It's been well over a year now since I said my "good-byes" to the friends that I met in Olathe, Colorado.  My year of teaching at Petrolia, Texas is now completed and I'm moving on to a position in nearby Randlett, Oklahoma.  Mike loves his job as the manager of the hardware store here in Burkburnett.  Both of us have made friends with plenty of new people.  We never forgot about the ones we left behind and will always carry them in our hearts.

Life went on.

I put all of those things back into the box a while ago and added a small package of notes that were written by some of the kids I had at Petrolia last year.  I read through them all this summer and smiled at the remembrances of what they were writing about.  One in particular tugged at my heart.

"Dear Mrs. Renfro,  I think what I will remember about you is that you always gave us kids another chance.  It was nice that you told us that each day was a new beginning for us and that it is a do over for us all.  I think you probably gave me more chances than I deserved but I am glad that you did.  I will miss you and I hope you will remember me.  I think that I would like to try to be an even better writer than I am right now."

I had to think of my first experiences as a homesick newlywed when I read that note. I'm glad that I gave life in Colorado more than one chance.  Mike reminded me many times during those first 8 weeks together that each day I would get better.  He gave me encouragement that every passing day would offer up the possibility to find something very positive about life in a new place.  Even more importantly, he told me that he knew that I would always love Kansas and that he didn't expect anything more of me.  He told me to take baby steps and it would seem easier.

And you know what?
He was right.
It did.

Amazing how life turns out, isn't it?