A reminder of the day that changed my life

I went to the new Fareway grocery store tonight in north Ames.  It's much closer than the downtown store and a lot nicer.  As I was leaving the store, one look and one breath took me back 14 years in my life. I was taken back to a moment from which everything I have felt and experienced since has been built upon.

I was living in Tallahassee at the time and working as an assistant manager at a Sam Goody music store.  Our store was on the second floor and to take the trash out we had to walk down a long exterior balcony to the trash shoot.  One afternoon I had taken the trash out and was just standing on the balcony looking out over the forest area that surrounded the mall. It was early spring, the trees were a bright green (it was the south, they are ALWAYS green) and the humidity in the air was low.

Having graduated from Florida State the previous summer and not knowing what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I knew I needed to make a change.  On that balcony I just had a feeling that I was going to be going to somewhere in the midwest.  At the time I thought I'd be moving to somewhere in Kansas (don't ask me why).

A few weeks later my best friend from college called and asked me if I wanted to move up to Iowa with him and his fiance (her parents wouldn't let them live together and he needed a roommate).  It's a move I have never regretted.  I met the love of my life and have never been happier.

Tonight at Fareway, as I looked out I saw the trees and felt the air and was taken back to that day in Tallahassee when I knew I was meant to be in the midwest.  Gotta love sense memory.