You can’t spell family without ILY (I love you) and you can’t spell Moorhead/Tolliver without beer. Wait.
Family isn’t defined by blood. Family is who bakes with you on a Saturday morning. Family is who helps fix your car when all you know how to do is push the pedal. Family is who loves unconditionally, accepts knowingly, and is supportive no matter the distance. The last 18 months is the first time in my adult life that I’m living surrounded by family members and it’s scatterbrained to explain. So bear with me, please. On one hand, the Wednesdays at Grandma Carol’s supper table are my inspiration to get through the week. While on the other hand, my boho spirit likes to stay off grid and earn my own reputation in this community. Overwhelmingly, I’ve been blessed to finally merge my two worlds of childhood and adulthood and I’m not sure where this journey leads me.
The intersection of Life & SD HWY 18
In retrospect, I’ve spent more hours selling lemonade with my cousin for 50 cents on North Main Wagner, than building blanket tents in my Colome backyard. The awkward sense of “home” being listed as two addresses on SD HWY 18, separated by 80 miles, sinks in as I fill out my health insurance plan for Year 26 (thanks Biden) in this pandemic-invested world. The urge to move onto “bigger and better” continually yearns at my Zillow account only to be met with my personal criticism of “the grass is always greener.” To my readers, when you are met with a decision in life, or intersection in this case, how do you decide which way to turn? A lesson that I’ve learned thus far is that no matter my location, family will always be near. People who yell at my Grandma, even if it’s not their own, to go to the ER. People who fill my freezer with elk meat, garden veggies, and Butterbraids. People who will always lend an ear from the Pacific Northwest or hand from Omaha, Nebraska. People who I consider family.
Being this close to my blood-related family tree definitely has its perks that I’m terrified to leave. My Uncle Orv takes me hunting and reveals untold stories of my cousins, father and other uncles. My niece, Cora, gave up “No Becca” and wants to create a TikTok at every visit. Uncle Bob fills my stomach with delicious Traeger treats and frozen oatmeal raisin cookies. And supper at mom’s is only one phone call and a half tank of gas away. How do I leave that? Well, here’s the intersection. The other scenario of nestling into a Black Hills home (yes, major plot twist not located on HWY 18) brings me closer to my adventurous side. I’d be closer to my dad’s memory and the countryside that he loved. I’d wake up each day to beautiful sunrises and sunsets that dominate my current Snapchat stories. My college friends would be just down the street and the opportunities to grow in my career could have so many avenues. How do I pick something so unknown? Where do I gain the confidence to buy a home, move my White Claw regalia across the state, and start over like I’ve done many times before? It’s easy being comfortable but being uncomfortable is where we start growing. Growing our personalities, our lifestyles and even the roots to our own family trees. Is it as simple as taking advice from last week’s fortune cookie: “Pick the path with heart.”
To end 2021, I’ll keep my seat at the Wagner First United Methodist Church coffee table. I’ll keep rolling dice with Jungle Jim’s direction. I’ll soak up every moment in Charles Mix county as an adult that I treasured as a child. It’s family that makes each place feel like home and with that knowledge under my feet, I have confidence to walk into the unknown.
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