I *heart* Mankato

Dearest Mankato,

Why was I so adamant that I never move back to my hometown? In my heart of hearts, I've always known I'm a Minnesotan - in all the states I've lived in, I never did change my residency, my driver's license or my license plates for my car. Every year I filed taxes in another state - Missouri, Vermont, Nebraska or Kentucky - I filed as a "non-resident".

Still, after fiance #2 dumped me and foiled my plans to move to Savannah, Georgia, to live happily ever after with a man I barely knew, I was dead-set against moving home. It took a road-trip to Florida with Ro, Tyra and my old car, Big H to change my course. I actually ran into a guy I went to high school with at an Against Me! show in Gainesville (or actually - in front of the venue - it was sold out and none of us got in) and ended up talking for hours with RoRo and Jake before I figured it out. I didn't even know Jake in high school. He's a few years younger than me, but we had mutual friends and both went to the same punk shows for several years. Actually, when I first thought I recognized him on the sidewalk, I disregarded it because the only people I thought I knew in Florida were old horse people from my job. When he passed by me again, however, I had to say something. Turns out, he WAS indeed from Minnesota, he DID indeed go to my high school, and I DID know who he was. The three of us went to coffee and he invited us to crash at his and his girlfriend's place for the night. We did that, and the next morning, after waking up to coffee brewing and breakfast cooking, the three of us sat around for several more hours and just talked, talked, talked, talked. (His girlfriend had to go to work early that morning.)

I will never forget what he said to me towards the end of that morning conversation. He said, "you know Sarah? I know I really don't know you all that well, but the more we keep talking, the more it seems like you really just want to go home. So.........why don't you go home?"

Huh. Good question Jake. Up until he said that to me, it hadn't even occurred to me that this was a possibility. Yes, I have a fantastic family. Of course I would have somewhere to go in my hometown. Yeah, my dad did have fairly serious heart issues in the recent past. Of course I missed out on a lot of family gatherings - watching Adam play in his various bands, going to watch the Twins, watching great movies with Emily, and even though I emailed with Mom quite frequently, it's not quite the same as sitting in the same room as her and talking shit to each other, or watching as she goes breathless from the "wind-up laugh" that Emily is so good at provoking in her.

I couldn't acknowledge it to myself back then, but of course I was afraid to come home because of what I had waiting for me here, emotionally. Ye ol' geographic fix does NOT work, by the way. Years of drugs doesn't help either. Trying to gloss over an infected wound and JUST BE HAPPY, DAMMIT is also pointless. At this point, I wasn't even really riding anymore - I was so bitter about choosing the horses over my life in Mankato (and the ex-boyfriend) and then being completely let down by the world as I had imagined it - I didn't even WANT to ride anymore. That's very unlike me, the girl who read every single horse book in my middle school library - twice - and didn't buy a car in high school, but did work two jobs to buy a horse and take riding lessons.

I did come home though. I took the insanely obvious hint from the Universe (I went to Florida to check out a free apartment I was offered in a barn; it didn't feel right and that very night I run into Mankato, MN - in Florida, for crying out loud.) I moved back in with my parents for 8 months and attempted to pry the scar tissue off over my deepest wound so I could clean the infection out and let it heal properly. I left Mankato in 1997. I moved back in 2004. Seven years of running, basically. Eight months later, I decided that I wanted to teach English instead of working with horses (still bitter), so I enrolled in grad school at Augsburg up in Minneapolis to get my Master's in Education and my teaching license for secondary school. Almost half-way through the year, I remembered how much I really didn't LIKE high school, and....well........it ceased to be interesting to me, so I stopped going. I was working full-time for the American Heart Association at this time as well, and I was also getting acclimated to living in a new city. I was freakin' miserable.

By May 2005, I had started cutting myself to deal with the emotional pain that just would NOT leave me alone. That's an entire book's worth of stories in and of itself, so I won't get too into it at this point. Suffice it to say, I once again found the drugs and I was really, really unhappy. Really unhappy. By the Fall of that same year, I started going in and out of the psych ward at Abbott NW. Station 48 became my second home, somewhere I felt safe and comfortable, when I wasn't safe or comfortable anywhere in the world. By January of 2006, AHA let me go because I couldn't stay out of the hospital and they felt I needed to take the time to truly heal. I was put on short-term disability through the company and a whole new chapter of my life started.

Anyway - I'm not at all in the mood to talk about that chapter right now, so let's just jump to August 20, 2009, when I moved out of where I was living with my husband, and once again came home. This time around, I'm not looking at Mankato through my high school eyes. I no longer see ghosts on every corner, in every park, or driving down familiar streets. I see a town that has exactly what I'm looking for. There's a great vibe in this little city, and I'm excited to be discovering all the nooks and crannies that fit me NOW, not me at 17. No, I do not intend to live with my parents forever. I'm pretty sure we'll all be excited when I'm sturdy enough on my own two feet again to get my own space in my hometown. I absolutely adore seeing my mom and dad every day, and I do realize how very blessed I am to be in this situation right now, but dude. I'm 30. And I live with my parents.

A great friend of mine, Mooshey, sent me a link to a job she thought I would be interested in last week sometime. I WAS super interested in it, and extremely qualified for it as well. It was for a barn manager job at a therapeutic riding stable. It's not PRECISELY what I plan on doing, as this facility dealt almost exclusively with physical disabilities and I'm looking to have a facility focused primarily with equine facilitated mental health services, but still......a wonderful experience, no doubt. I was very, very excited when she sent it to me (do I not have the best friends? They think to do things like send me job postings they know I'd love....) but something in my gut stopped me from calling them immediately to find out more information. And then it stopped me from making that phone call the next day as well. Finally, on day 3, while sitting in the waiting room of the clinic while my mom had an appointment, I figured it out.

I keep a small, felt-covered journal in my purse at all times, so wherever I am, I can write when the mood strikes. There often ends up being like 4 books in there as well, a few CDs, and sometimes even my laptop. It's ridiculous, really. :) Anyway - as I'm writing in this little journal of mine, I realize that I have no desire to leave this bend of the MN river. The job I was interested in is southeast of Kansas City. Nothing against Missouri, but I've already lived there, and it just doesn't DO it for me like Minnesota does.

As far as MN goes, I tried being a "City person", but I'm just not. I hate having to be in the car for at least an hour to get to the countryside. I really, really like visiting Minneapolis (and even St. Paul is finally warming up to me) and I'm glad I lived there for awhile but...........I just don't belong up there. I tried, I really did. I tried to be "hip" and live near all the wonderful coffee shops and music and interesting people to watch. I'm just not. There are fantastic coffee shops in Mankato (where I almost ALWAYS run into at least one person I know and like, if not more) and just tonight I was at an open mic at this place called Professor's, where yet again, I ran into someone I vaguely know from mutual friends, and I was seriously just blown away by the talent I witnessed. Two hours of beautiful souls sharing their art with us - it was so fantastic. So fantastic.

So, dearest Mankato - I'll stick around indefinitely and see what the Universe brings to me, or perhaps what the Universe brings me to. There's such good juju in this town - certain neighborhoods and streets being even more appealing to me than others. I dig it. I certainly do. :)

Love,

~Q~