Flagship

A few weeks ago I went to visit my sister at my dad's house after she had minor surgery. I didn't drive home until 2am. I felt a wicked glee in driving home on abandoned roads, acing every light, owning the road. I felt like a rebellious teenager. Only, instead of staying out late from my dad's house with my boyfriend, I was escaping my "boyfriend" to chill at my dad's. The irony was not lost on me. Not that I was ever much of a curfew breaker anyway. When I got home, I speed walked up to my front door (I always get a little creeped out coming home alone at night. It's that thing I have where I always wonder if I'm on a reality show) carrying a cube of Diet Dr. Pepper that was about to rip open. Thankfully I made it onto my front porch before it did, falling away out of my hand and making a cacophony of noise as the cans rolled around on the tile floor. It being 2am, and me being slaphappy, I giggled insanely while I unlocked the door, laughing at myself, sneaking in the house in the middle of the night, making noise like a clutzy teenager. More than anything, I felt happy. Relaxed. There's something about going home and pretending like I don't have an adult's responsibilities. Something about knowing that there's a part of my life I can come back to and fit into comfortably. 
I've heard my dad say before that youth is wasted on the young. There are few things more true than that. As kids and teenagers we're in such a hurry to "grow up" that we miss out on being young. We don't know what we have until we outgrow it. Sitting next to my sister on her bed, watching movies on her laptop and eating lemon lime popsicles, I felt like no time had passed. Has it really been over ten years since I went away? That doesn't seem possible. Where did it all go? How am I not seventeen anymore? And why did I wish all those good years away, counting down until I could escape into adulthood?
In ten, twenty years, I'd love for my kids to be able to come back home and pretend, even if just for a few hours, that they're little again. When their rebellious years are over, when they're done thinking about how uncool or unfair I am, they can come back. They can sneak away from their real life and remember what it was like to have no responsibility. They can curl up on the couch next to me, tuck their feet under their legs and remember. Eat popsicles. Laugh about how ridiculous they were, hurrying to grow up.
And isn't that what we grow up for? To be "base" for our kids when they're done running away? From the minute our children are born, we're raising them to leave us. To be independent, to be strong and brave. To outgrow us, in some ways. To become base for their own families. And I suppose, when I think of it in this light, of myself as being the flagship that they know they came from; that they can always return to when they need a pause from building their own it takes some of the sting out of leaving childhood behind.

{{Past Few Weeks' Photo Dump}}

(I have some catching up to do. Here are a few moments from our flagship.You'll notice we've added another family member- more on him later.)