Lessons From Anne of Green Gables

Lately I have been incredibly homesick and trying to figure out who I am and where I am going. I think I have a bit of post-matrimonial depression. Yes, I just made that up. I highly doubt that this is a real condition, but in my mind, it is a horrible disease that inflicts millions of newly married women every year. In reality I am probably just feeling the effects of the last three years. They have been the most difficult years of my short 23 year life. I am coming out of the storm and am now picking up the pieces. I have changed so much over the last few years and lately I have been searching desperately for who I was before all of the hurt and dissapointment took over my life. Am I scared to be happy again? Do I find my identity in the pain? Why can't I just break through??

For the past several days I have been watching the Anne of Green Gables series. I even made Josh dig out the old VCR so I could watch the videos. I am finding that it makes me even more homesick. I can't help but remember what it was like the first time I watched these movies and how I had the world's biggest crush on Gilbert Blythe. It brings back soo many memories of my childhood best friend Ashley Peterson, who introduced me to the series. I think about my parents, specifically my mom. She use to watch the movies with me and would laugh at the dramatic things Anne said, mainly b/c her daughter (me) seemed to be just as dramatic. It is in these moments of memories that for the first time in a really long time, I have felt like "Lindsay" again. I had better stop this before I start crying.

These memories are all so bittersweet. Those days are over and I can never go back to how it was. I can't erase three years of hurt, anger, sadness, and seeming endless tears. I miss the simplicity of life. I miss my innocence. I miss home and what home meant. I don't understand why things have to change and people have to go away. Why can't things just stay the same?

I know that the coming days and years are going to bring new challenges and circumstances I can't control. I know that I am going to grow and change. However, no matter how many things change and where life takes me, the way I feel when watching Anne of Green Gables is real and is the core of who I am. I am a small town potato farmer's daughter from Kuna, Idaho. The only thing to do now, is build on that.