Home Is Wherever I'm With You

I turn 30 this Friday. As a middle-class white American, I have the luxury of reflecting back on my life and trying to draw truth out of the existential mess – a luxury I partake in a lot. (If I can get my act together – and get through my Stats homework – I’ll post some thoughts on 3 decades of life later this week.)

I’ve had my ups and downs and roundabout paths. I never applied to film school (old regret that fades a little each year) and I started an MDiv, swore it off, and am now very close to starting it again. I’ve had more careers and more identity crisis than I care to remember.

But through the years I met a girl, we made a baby, and we’ve lived a good life. Everything else is just noise.

I have had trouble putting down roots over the last few years. There were the moves from Indianapolis to Minneapolis to Portland back to Minneapolis and finally back to Indianapolis. (That’s not even counting the failed and/or stalled attempts to move to Austin, Orlando, L.A., D.C., and South Korea.) And that girl – my wonderful wife, Nikki – was always along for the ride, no matter how crazy (or melodramatic) it/I was.

I wouldn’t be who I am today without her. And in the rush of celebrations with friends and family, I don’t want to forget to mention that I wouldn’t be here (or be who I am) without her. We do a poor job relishing life, and we do an even worse job of appreciating and celebrating the very people who make this life so great.

So, as I close up the third decade of my life, I just want to thank the woman I love. She’s still that girl I fell in love with in the J-Lab at Taylor, but she’s so much more than that. And whether we die in this house in Irvington sixty years from now or move again in five years, I know that home is wherever I’m with her.