Just Haven't Met You Yet

My junior year of high school was the year that I really recognized that I starting to lose my connection to California. I missed it. All of the time. I still do. I continually felt the need to be there to feel like home again. I'm sure that everyone misses the place where they grew up. I'm sure that's why my mom insisted on us moving back to Idaho after her being gone for nearly thirty years.

That was the year that I was taking AP English with one of my all-time favorite teachers. We had to write an essay in which we used description of a place to evoke emotion to our readers. A pretty basic assignment I would say. I chose to write about something that I had a lot of emotions about. Rinaldi's Market in Linden, CA. My teacher was amazed. She loved the paper, it was a major improvement from my previous assignment and it was full of my dramatic teenage emotions. My mom cried when she read my paper. I sent it to my friends in Linden and they loved it too. You may be sitting there, thinking to yourself: really, a grocery store? What makes it so special?

I can't really explain it. When this world seems to be getting so big, it's nice to know that a place like Rinaldi's exists. Or maybe thinking about how it was in the past makes me remember that I'm from a small town and that no matter where I go or what aspirations I have, that's where my roots are.

The other day, I was working on an assignment for class and I went through and read my paper about Rinaldi's. The first time in years. And guess what - it was a really bad paper. But there were some beautiful parts to it. It was titled "I Fell in Love at a Grocery Store". I remember how proud I was of that title. Then, I kid you not - seven months later, THIS VIDEO was released. It then became my dream to actually fall in love in a grocery store. But this isn't actually a blogpost about how I have recently fallen in love or anything.

This post is mostly about how sometimes it's really nice to remember where you came from. 

It makes you want to look at where you're going and make it count.
I have this internal debate every time someone asks me where I'm from. It would seem so sad to forget the place I grew up. But I hate neglecting what Idaho gave to me as well. So I usually say both.

Because I like who I am.
And these places are a part of that.