Take Me Home Country Roads??

I am truly a Midwestern girl. I think cornfields are beautiful, and farmers are sexy. I love beautiful fall days, cold winters, and hot humid Summers... Colorado can have their mountains, Florida you can shove your beaches up your old people butts. New York take your high fashion, exciting nightlife, and fancy drinks away from my Gap store, Bunco games, and Coors Light. Give me the smell of a hog farm and burning leaves any day . I was no where raised on a farm, probably would have a heart attack if my hips had to see the inside of an overall, and it makes me laugh till I pee my pants thinking about me as a farmer's wife, but I like the whole idea of it anyway. I thought I would live in Peoria forever, I had no intention, desire, need, or legal reason to leave Illinois. I was born here and pretty much thought I would die here and was okay with that.

About 11 years ago my Mom up and decided that she was going to move to Seattle after visiting there with her boyfriend the previous Summer. She found a job out there, sold my childhood home, and off she went with her hiking boots,Birchenstocks,and my sister in tow. I was 21 and was sad that she was leaving but I was dating my future ex-husband at the time and thought he was all I needed, the whole "livin on love" bullshit we thrived on back then. So we waved good-bye and almost immediately I couldn't function because I missed her so much. Now those of you that know me or my mother know we didn't have a lovey dovey, brush each other's hair and gossip kind of relationship. We had the don't fuck up and I won't yell at you kind of one. Which as disfunctional as that sounds suited me fine. We were oil and water really two very head strong, stubborn women... it was probably better that we would be 3,000 miles away from one another. I thought that, until she left. I cried every night. My mom and sis loved it out there and they would sing the praises and the beauty of the mountains every night on the phone and it wore me down, my thoughts that I was going to live and die here were replaced with "Why the hell am I wasting my life in Peoria?" So over pizza one night I told D that I had made the decision to move out to Seattle and that he could come with me or else we needed to end things (Reason#327 why we should have broke up long before we got married) I wasn't all that sad if he decided to stay. He was unusually attached to his Dad and I really couldn't see him breaking that apron string anytime soon, but to my surprise he said he wanted to come with me. So we had a kick ass good-bye party and off we went across the country to start our brand new life with each other...too bad we couldn't really stand each other for more than a couple of hours at a time and every state we traveled through were more and more reasons we should have parted ways...but hindsight is a bitch sometimes.



So we get to Seattle and it is big, and noisy, and overwhelming to someone who rarely went anywhere bigger than the Chicago suburbs all her life. We were broke and our relationship was straining because we couldn't go out and party like our friends we had to work 2 jobs to pay the bills, expensive big city bills we weren't used to in Peoria. It took its toll and I hated it there, I missed my mom but not enough to live nearer than a 100 miles from her. So we, for whatever reason, I think mainly it was the "get married or move on" thinking, we got engaged and moved back to Peoria, 2 years later.



Fast forward 8 years....four kids, divorced, back in school... rethinking where I want to be 5 years from now or 10 years from now. And yes it has a large part to do with the fact that I am in love with a man who I would go anywhere with. I know he tells me otherwise, but I don't think he would be happy living his life out here. He was intrigued by bigger cities. I as previously stated love corn mazes, and John Mellancamp.

I took Lily to visit my Mom in Seattle when she was 2 and the regret I had that I didn't stay longer in the city was overwhelming. I would love to move out there to live in that city , to be closer to my mom and sister. But....life worked out different and the fact is my kids have their Dad here and E has 11 year old girls in Kewanee, and neither of us can picture being the one to move away from them, or to be the parent that takes them away from their Dad. So we'll see, maybe my desire to get the hell out of Dodge will change. I do love Illinois I love the Seasons and the rivers and the trails, and small town living. I have time to decide this time and will hopefully find a good happy medium where we can all be happy... and you know where I can find John Denver on the jukebox.