I dreamed a dream in time gone by

I'm rounding out the last part of my trip home. It's at this point of the trip that I'm over the "man I just really want to get back to Utah" and I'm at the "man, I really don't want to leave" part. This is a process I go through every time I come home. It always happens after I go and see my extended family. I always get a little nostalgic and start to think about how it was growing up, when everyone was close and we all lived within 10 mins of each other. I miss those days. I was particularly close to my cousins Mary and Anna. You all have heard about Lora from previous posts, for all my loyal readers (hahaha yeah right) out there. Let me stop for a minute and tell you about the awesomely beautiful Anna and Mary. We'll start with Mary, since she's the oldest. 

My fondest memories of Mary are sleepovers at her house and drinking Dr. Pepper out of baby bottles (misguided but don't knock it until you try it). We always did ridiculous photo shoots. After torturing her little brother and several wardrobe changes later, we have some pretty rad photos that will never see the light of day. Let's just say, girls should never be allowed free reign of a camera during the awkward preteen phase of life. Then Mary got her license and we had such good times riding in her convertible BMW. Yeah, be jealous. I still can't hear a song by Aliyah or old school Jay-Z and not think of that car and Mary. Such good times. A couple of times, I almost moved in with Mary, and something always came up that prevented it from happening. I miss her all the time though. 

Then there was Anna. That's Lora's older sister for those of you who know Lora. She lived right at the bottom of my driveway and inevitably we spent endless nights staying over at each other's houses. She always came and cleaned my room when I had to get it done before we could play. I could never find anything after that. Anna is literally good at everything. Anything she tries, she will excel at it. It drove me nuts when I was younger and for a while, I always felt jealous of her in some ways because everyone always compared me to her. I felt she was this beacon of awesomeness that I could never live up to. I don't feel that way anymore. Not because she isn't still awesome at literally everything, but mostly because a few years after Anna was at college and married to someone out in Utah, and I was still living in VA, I started missing her like someone would miss an arm that was amputated. My ex husband asked me one time, what I would do if he died. Without me even answering, he said "You'd move to Utah wouldn't you? You miss Anna that much, don't you?" (That wasn't verbatim but that was basically what he said. Not even I can remember exact wording after this long) He was right though. I did move to Utah, and she moved here not too long after. Haha, awesome. 

When you look back on your childhood, it's easy to long for the days when times were simple and the only worries we had were which outfit to wear for the next photo shoot, or how we were going to get the motorcycles home when they broke down. Now it's, how I'm going to pay the rent and pay for tuition this semester? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Now we make decisions that affect the rest of our lives, not just the rest of the day. That gets in the way sometimes. It gets in the way of spending time with the people you love. I never seem to have enough time to see everyone that I want to. I never am able to express to the people around me how much they mean to me. If I could write a blog about each one of my cousins, I would. I mean, I guess I could, but ain't nobody got time for that. Each one of them has impacted my life in some way, whether they know it or not and I hope they all know how much I love them.

Mary and Anna, this one is dedicated to you two and I hope you know how much the two of you shaped my life. I miss you both daily and think about you often. I found a few gems while I was home and I think we should recreate some of these very soon. Love you both.

Anna, Mary, and I with our Grandma and Grandaddy

Anna, Mary, and I at my house

Disclaimer: Sorry for the blurriness, I literally took a picture of a picture because I'm super high-tech and cool like that. Also, was there a predestined order we always sat in? Anna, recognize that face? I'm pretty sure that's one of your daughter's faces. ;)