Montana Melancholy

I am sitting here full of so many thoughts and feelings and emotions. I just read a post that my dear friend Shari wrote about our beloved Montana. Some, but not many know that I am a transplant - I spent what I will call the best parts of my childhood in Montana - in Great Falls. It was with mixed feelings and afterwards - a lot of regrets that I left my love - my mountains, rivers, prairies and open spaces. 

It was for love that I've yet to return. My life now is tied invariably to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The man I love has the ocean running through his blood as much as I have the mountains in mine. We all make sacrifices and mine has been to be separated from the lands that will forever be part of my soul. 

Shari, like me - is no longer living in Montana - but still has family there - and visits at least once a year. She was writing about feeling that she was "home" when she recently visited - despite having a life outside of Seattle - a family, career, house, etc. 

I think part of the reason I've yet to return is I am afraid I would never want to return to Florida. I would never want to be separated from my family - and to return would leave me melancholy I'm sure. I'm just not ready to go back.

Eleven years later I still tell people that I'm from Montana - it's blatantly obvious that I'm not from around here - no accent, etc. 

It's crazy to me that a place I have not seen since high school can still bring me to tears when I think about it for too long - that Shari's description of her love for Lake MacDonald and Apgar Village in Glacier National Park can evoke such deep emotions in me that I'm sitting here weeping as I type this out. 

There was a feeling of peacefulness I had there - of being able to surround myself with the most beautiful landscapes I'd ever seen - to lose myself in the mountains and valleys and streams. In my backyard were the endless prairies, the mountain ranges, the extraordinary sunsets. I could watch a thunderstorm roll across the plains - a hundred miles away. 

It was the wildlife - the flora and fauna - the mountains, the waters - it is a magical place.

Don't get me wrong- Montana is a hard place to live - the winters are hard and the summers aren't all sunshine and play all the time.

But I still miss it and one day hope to be back in the Northwest - I'd love to raise my kids out there. I think Mike got a small glimpse of it all when we were in Oregon - and it's definitely a place I could call home as well - we've said 10 more years here and then we'll think about retiring out west.

I can't wait.