Is this home?

Lara is a girl who thoroughly enjoys a storm.

I'm not kidding! I love watching thunder roll across the valley, I love seeing fog on the mountains, and the feel it leaves in the air. I love rain on my skin, the smell of rain, the look of rain, everything about rain. I love every weather, but there is something about storms.

Part of me thinks it has to do with my childhood. I grew up in a house with a HUGE west facing window. It took up an entire wall. And we overlooked the valley and all watch storms come in and watch the sky fight with the earth. It was always so much fun for me.

Part of me thinks it has to do with my pre-teens. One memory has stuck in my head so hard, I was in middle school walking around with my friends before school started. The mountain was covered in fog, and I laughed with them, and was so happy to have friends.

Part of me thinks it has to do with my time in high school. When I think of high school, I think of (well first the band room... but...) the band bus. For a good part of the marching band competition season, we were on a bus in a storm. And we'd travel along the front of the mountains. I felt so content listening to people talk about the nerdiest things, to cuddle up in my blanket and draw on the window, looking forward to performing more than anything.

I love storms so much. All of me thinks it's because of the memories it brings back.

Yesterday there was a storm! I sat at my kitchen table and looked out and watched the storm. Storms in the past made me happy, they reminded me of happy memories and reminded me that there were more happy memories to be made. But this storm... something was different.

Part of me thinks it was because of where I am. Physically and mentally. I'm in Salt Lake. I don't have a huge west facing window. I don't have family to watch the storms with. I have friends, but we don't have time to walk before school and laugh and talk. I'm in band, but we don't compete.

Every thing is so different.

Sure happy memories are to be made, but before I was able to look forward to those memories because I knew what they would be. Now I have no idea! It's so different. I loved the storm yesterday.

But all of me was a little sad realizing that those memories were just memories.

Today I walked around trying to find something that was a memory, but was happening right at that moment. Some sort of event I could tie back to the past.

This is where it gets silly. I was walking to the pep rally, it's home coming week, right? I walked past some sort of field, there were bright lights over it, but I wasn't close enough to see what kind of field it was.

The event that brought back those memories was the sounds of hundreds of people screaming.

I grew up by a stadium eh. We were used to the sounds of games coming from down there. Whether they were winning or losing, people were always screaming.

And so the sounds of hundreds of people screaming brought me back home. For all I know, that field was slaughtering grounds and hundreds of people were meeting their maker.

I don't care. I got to go 'home' for a second.

I don't know where home is right now. I don't think 'home' is a physical location. Home is wherever you decide to make it.

Think about that as you will.