It's been a beautiful day; and as I sat outside in my driveway smoking my pipe and listening to the birds chirp, coo, tweet, quack, and squawk; I finally realized what I was leaving for the race. See my mom asked me a question today while we were eating the ever so wonderful post church biscuits and gravy; she asked me if I had a good childhood. It was a weird question, so I kind of shrugged it off, said yes and moved on, not really thinking about it, but now while I'm looking around at my neighbors houses I realize that at some point or another they've all invited me inside their homes, whether it was to fill out a grade school fundraiser, check out their new drum set or even just to play games and eat their food, they've let me in. I know most every one of them at least to some degree.
Then I looked at the court and remembered all the times we've played kickball, baseball, or football out there. I can still tell you which cracks in the concrete we used as bases and end zones. I remember me and my brother used to play a made up football game with dad; who could catch the most passes out of five, and I remember some of the really dumb plays we used to make up, where the line of scrimmage was and how many times my big brother beat me at that game. He was always faster than me, probably still is too.
I also remember riding my bike around this little circle with nick waiting for mom and dad to come out so we could go ride our bikes down the big hill in the neighborhood which seems to have shrunk at least a little bit since childhood, I remember rides that seemed like hours going down now seem like the more appropriate 25 seconds. And I can't forget ramping my little mountain bike off of every curb in the court to see which one I could get the most distance out of (Sid and Betty's was always the winner).
I remember my friends used to come over and they would park in the most random places, double parking, even triple parking sometimes wasn't out of the question. That probably wasn't even the strangest part of it, what's better is that everyone who was here sometimes around 15 people would all try to cram into the same tiny hot tub, there would be so many dudes sitting on each other you would've thought we were a boy band. Which, while were on the topic of boy bands, one spring break we claimed to be one. We were boy band one one one one one (said like an echo fading) and we even had a kid come ask for our autograph after an impromptu backstreet boys song in a crowded restaurant. We were that good, and by that good I mean we bribed him to come ask us for it when the waitress came by because we all collectively agreed she was a good looking waitress. The thought wasn't mutual.
Back to the neighborhood though, I remember playing basketball in the front yard and doing everything I could to impress whichever of the neighborhood girls were watching. I was and still am a terrible basketball player though so that usually backfired and just made me look like a dummy but I think I got cute points for trying so hard :).
I was always outside, whether it was to play with sticks and pretend they were bazookas, or to play around the world with dad on the basketball court, or even to swim, most the time my sole purpose of swimming was to cannon ball as close to mom as possible thus disrupting her tanning and really getting under her skin at the same time; I clearly thought it was funnier than she did.
Then again I do remember some pretty awesome times inside too. Whether it was beating Zelda for the first time, holding little baby puppies who would suck on your fingers if you let them, or making blanket forts and having nerf gun wars in the basement. Those things got intense. There were a few times they ended with one of us thrashing the other ones fort showing absolutely no good sportsmanship.
I think some of my favorite memories though are the times we came home and we were all up in the kitchen and mom would be pulling biscuits out of the oven and fried chicken off the stove and we would eat it all thinking that she made it, only to throw away the chicken bones afterwards and see the kfc boxes hiding underneath other kfc boxes which were all forcefully shoved into another kfc box. She would plagiarize her cooking! If this were school she would've failed! She isn't as smooth as she thinks, but we still love her.
All this to say that I really did have a good childhood, and I will miss home, my family, my friends, and even having 15 dudes crammed into a hot tub, but I know that God's promises and His glory are going to be more than worth it. I can't imagine how great the memories I'll make with Jesus are going to be, and to top it off, memories with Jesus wont be limited to a place or a time. They will be eternal and so full of joy it'll be unreal. Basically I'm moving, moving away from home and I'm going to live with Jesus and we're gonna have a life together! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Also I'm nearly a third to fully funded! thanks everyone and feel free to continue donating! 🙂
