Farewell Twin Cities
Selby in the Snow.
Home is somewhere you can return without anyone asking why you came.
My dad, being a St. Paul native, inspired many visits to his hometown, and my sister moving there at seventeen, encouraged many more trips throughout my childhood. It wasn’t until the summer I turned sixteen that I really immersed myself into the cities. I spent that summer with my sister, befriending her close knit community and gallivanting around both St. Paul and Minneapolis. When the summer came to an end, I returned to Florida, but a lucky speck of me lingered back in those cities and I had a feeling that one day I’d be there long enough to get it back.
Six years later, I had a beautiful apartment on the same street as my sisters favorite diner. The same diner where we sipped on coffee and watched the snow flurries dance (for what felt like) a lifetime ago.
Soon after deciding to move to Minnesota, I met my now fiancé. It was Christmas evening and after my sister, her husband and I tucked our parents in for the night, we had the genius idea of walking over to the best bar in St. Paul, Tiffany’s.
Right past the door, at the corner of the bar, stood my future husband, Max. As populated as St. Paul is, the community is fairly small (everyone knows everyone), and Max was a family friend to my brother-in-law, so our parties merged. With a vodka soda in hand, Max curiously walked over to my sister and formally sought the green light to chat with me. A month later we were dating and the rest is history.
Experiencing the fun-loving nightlife, fascinating architecture and natural landscape of both cities was a dream come true, but the biggest gift Minnesota gave me was the community that I became intertwined with. I started working part-time at a consignment shop, and that gig snowballed into a purpose. I didn’t just become an integral part of a tightly run ship, I grew to be loved by every person I worked with and met along the way.
To be loved is to be understood. Everyone on my team accepted my silly, eccentric and peculiar character the same way I celebrated theirs. Becoming embedded in a community that I will never lose touch with and obtaining friends I’ll keep for life is one of the greatest treasures that found me during my adventure.
The most bittersweet sentiments that come with moving away surround my lovely sister, Janique. If soul mates exist, she is mine. I took us being a mere eight minutes away for granted, and no amount of FaceTime calls would ever amount to what a hug from her, right now, could.
I will miss my two wonderful nephews who I have had the pleasure of watching grow, my brother in law, my cousin and everyone that became routine in my life.
Minnesota, thank you for evolving me into the person I am today, I will never stop missing you, and I will never stop calling you one of my homes.
