I’ve been waiting to leave this town since the day I was born, but I can say that a place changes when high school is no longer how you view it. 

This weekend I got a glimpse of that. I got to see what it was like to spend days with people I love in a town I thought was impossible to enjoy. 

But when you wake up in an apartment with the original floors from the 1920’s above a cafe, and the Saturday morning sunny sky is shining down on the sidewalks waiting for the feet from it’s local travelers, the thought of this is where I went to high school doesn’t even slip by. 

When you’re squealing with your best friend that her crush from church showed up to her house warming party, there’s no time to think about this is where I went to high school. Especially when they exchanged numbers.

There’s a breeze, and a bright moon, and you’re on the lawn with a bunch of strangers and friends and you’re all listening to a bunch of people who grew up in a town they didn’t like, playing instruments they all distracted themselves with in that town; and the conductor says our town reminds him of his town. Makes him feel at home. Home isn’t just high school. 

Then that night comes to an end with neighbor’s next door, above that same cafe, just walking distance, and you fall asleep watching Frozen while a guy is getting his finger nails painted bright orange and the high from caffeine and friends starts to wear off. This just isn’t high school anymore. 

You wake up the next morning, finish last night’s hazelnut ice coffee, and get ready for church with your best friend, and you’re in a room filled with people and the Holy Spirit, and the beat of the drums and the strike of the piano keys and that woman’s voice is exactly what you want at 10 AM on a Sunday morning. This is more than high school. 

The day isn’t over until you take a trip to a local antique shop, where it could be a whole town itself, and it speaks post-apocalyptic. Old records, clothes, a special edition Star Trek Barbie, and post cards filled with memories that got lost along the way. There’s more than just high school.

All of a sudden you end up in a building with people trying to make it into the music scene, and you’re singing Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade on the top of your lungs with a guy with shaggy blond hair who just ran around in a Superman costume, that hugs you so tightly you can feel the warmth of his muscles against you. And there’s beach balls and guitar picks flying across the room, and a guy who’s about 8 feet tall from Canada, and there’s all these people you know and shyness isn’t real anymore. There’s more to life than high school.