the honorary swedish citizen

                             

I know it seems ridiculous that I have the time to blog in the midst of insanity.  (Or Banana Land, as I like to call it.)  I vacillate between feeling like I’ve got this and complete panic attacks at 1am.  But for the most part, I’ve got this.  I am the type of person that doesn’t feel like I am making any progress until I have something COMPLETELY finished, and so basically, I won’t feel like I’ve done anything until:

a) I can shut the door on a particular room and not open it again because it has been completely cleaned out. OR

b) We are pulling away from the curb with a fully-packed moving van.

But part of this whole process for me is saying goodbye, and I really don’t want to rush through all the packing and emptying of the house without taking a couple moments here and there to reflect on what these 9.5 years have been.  I want to take the next couple posts to say goodbye and thank you specifically to a few different people who have really impacted my life here in Winona.  This is in no way a complete list, so if you don’t get an entire post devoted to you, its not that I don’t like you, its just that there are too many awesome people to blog about.  But onto the blogging.   First is Trish Johnson.

We went over to Trish and Mike’s house a couple nights ago for ice cream and goodbyes.  It was bittersweet because Trish prefaced the whole thing with, “Its not really goodbye-goodbye, its just, we’ll see you later-goodbye.”  It was nice of her to do that, because if she didn’t, I might have fallen apart.  The kids have had so much fun together for many years and we’ve shared so many laughs together.  But, even after all of that, I am really sad to move away from them.  So here goes.

Trish, I just want to take a minute to thank you.  When we first started out a Central, Malin had a really, really hard first year.  It was good to be at Central, and it was such a good place for her, but for me, I felt really alone.  I have a hard time making friends, and *HORRIBLE SELF ESTEEM ALERT* I have always felt like no one wants to be my friend. From the minute you welcomed me in to those after-school playground sessions where we would sit around on the hot tar of Central’s playground while the kids played and ran off steam, I felt like I was part of the “in” crowd.  You have never ceased to emotionally “high five” me every time I see you, and to that I say thank you so much.  You are such a (pardon the cheesy word picture) but you are such a sunflower when everyone else is just seems to be a boring old weed.  You are truly one of those people who lights up a room, and on my most blah days, you never fail to make me feel better.

We have shared so many laughs together, so many fun afternoons dishing mom news at the pool, and so many “we’ll laugh about this later” carpool disasters.  Malin had her first real sleep over at your house (Thank you for taking on that challenge, I am sure I owe you about 3 hours of good sleep you’ll never get back) and when I ask Malin who her friends are at school, she simply replies, “Lauren.”

Mike, (Ok, I know this was supposed to be just for Trish, but Mike’s pretty rad too,) Thank you for all the rides to the cities that you have bestowed upon Craig.  He really loved getting to know you better and loved having someone to talk to.  Thanks for taking care of him and adjusting your schedule to accommodate ours.  It meant a lot. 

I wish we had 29.5 more years to spend together because I know for sure I would never get bored of our friendship. 

Thank you, Trish, you have been such a great encouragement to me.  I will miss you. 

You will always be one of my favorite people who I’ve had the privilege to meet in Winona.