"1, 2, 3, 4...

Tell me that you love me more."

Spoiler alert: this post is about Helene, Mike, Meals, Iggs, and all the Grovelts fur babies, Kristina, Christian, Denise, Brentyn, Bubba and baby Soph, And all the Mace furbabys Justin, Kelly. Name droppin forever. ;)

When I moved back to MD, things were weird. Well... I was weird. No, I was FEELING weird. I had this crazy and intense whirlwind adventure in PA for over a year and moving back felt like... I had lost a lot of my barrings. And I had trouble really figuring out to fit into life here again. I was not the same person I was when I took off, and I didn't want to be... but at the same time, this new person that came home was feeling very lost. And I wanted to jump right back into things with my friends here as if no time had passed. And I was having trouble doing that.

A lot happened here while I was gone. People were getting married, and having kids and moving in together. While I was off gallivanting all over the East Coast with my PA crew (drum corps and otherwise), people here were putting serious roots down. So walking into that was, a weird thing. I felt disconnected for a while.

Now, the thing is, and this might sound a little contrary to what I just said above... this new odd, more traveled, adventurous, but also terrified nomad me was so welcomed by everyone here, that it was almost intimidating. I felt as if (and this was my block), that I had missed so much and that maybe it SHOULD take some time for me to find my place, and I think that in feeling that way, I sort of was blind to what was really going on. And what was going on, you ask?

Unconditional acceptance.

There was not a moment in my transition home, or in the time since that I was ever made to feel like an outcast. My friends, my crew... they made me feel so loved and wanted in a time where I was feeling incredibly strange (really the only word I can use to describe it at the moment). They were kind and inviting and so completely... unconditional.

I don't think I really realized how completely welcoming and wonderful my friends were/are until... well, the past 18 months, honestly. Because looking back to that time, I must have been incredibly insufferable. I was feeling awkward in my own skin, trying to get into a groove and having a lot of feelings about my time in PA and I know it could not have been easy to have me around while I was sorting through the past and trying to get my footings to the future. So I am forever thankful for their honesty and warmth.

And here it is now, 2015, and I've been back in MD for four years. Which really is amazing to me to think that it has actually been that long. And now, I'm finding myself in the midst of not just friends... but fRamily. I have found myself in this group of people where I am invited to not only celebrate milestones but to also create new ones. And its funny, because I never would have anticipated how important these people would become to me. Although, I guess I should have. They've always been my stability, my north star, my moral compass, my therapists, my party people, my confidants, my baby sitters, my Denny's group, my lifelines. They are so much more than friends to me. They are, indeed without a doubt... my family. And maybe some of it has to do with timing, and all of us just being in the right place at the right time but I know for a fact that not everyone is as lucky to have found their tribe, let alone one that is so strong, and beautiful. And while I'm sure I'll write many more love letters to them both as a group and individually, right now I'm just... over the moon about getting be such a major player in their lives. Every day.

Because moments like this?  They only come around once.

Make a wish!

Haters gon' hate, potatoes gon' potate... but Flave is definitely going to Flave.
Go forth and be awesome.
Unconditionally yours,
~flave