This was a summer of travel for me. I took my youngest to California, we did three family trips to Utah, I visited my college best friend in Washington, and hubby + I went on a couples trip to Tennessee (thanks to the best in-laws in the world for watching our three littles). Throughout these trips, I looked for my three favorite things: local coffee shops, cheap thrift stores, fun plant nurseries, and found them in abundance. What I didn’t find was shocking. Sometime in the past six months, I have lost my dislike of Pahrump.
It may be controversial publicly announcing this in a local newspaper, but I did not like Pahrump when we first moved here. In fact, I did not like it for years after that, too. I’m from the Texas desert, so it wasn’t the heat or lack of foliage. Even being from a huge city, I’m a terrible driver and general homebody, so it wasn’t the lack of places to go or things to do. It just didn’t feel like home. Even when we bought a house and started to renovate, I hadn’t mentally put down roots. Previously, when traveling I would think “oh this is such a cool place, I wish we lived here”. The “here” didn’t matter – tiny town of Wales, Utah, huge city of Vienna, Austria, beach vibes of Santa Barbara, California, hot landscape of Mesa, Arizona, or cloudy humidity of Seattle, Washington. I liked everywhere, anywhere more than Pahrump.
On our last trip of this summer, as a couple to Tennessee, I was laying in our hotel drinking the best banana bread latte I’ve ever had and reading my third novel of the trip (thank you, thank you, thank you Lisa, you are the best mother-in-law I could ever have dreamed of) when it hit me – I missed Pahrump. It was absurd. It was insane. I had lost my mind. We had hiked to a beautiful quarry the night before, and had the best hot chicken I’ve ever had the night before that, and still, I missed home.
It hit me that it wasn’t necessarily a location itself that made home, it was the effort and relationships I had built there that made the difference. It was the past six months of sitting on my back porch appreciating the view instead of lamenting the heat. It was putting time and effort into large community changes like clothes swaps, community baby showers, and little free libraries. It was the friends I wanted to take a banana bread latte to. It was dancing at the gym and being encouraged to grab a heavier dumbbell for the workout. It was finding my people – the people who love my kids like I love theirs, who encourage me to be myself, and are comfortable sharing their real with me, too. It was slowing down and focusing on the grass that was greener all along, just waiting to be noticed.
Disclaimer/Reality Check: I’m not claiming Pahrump is perfect – I would love a Costco, year-round swimming pool with a swim program, and a Chick-Fil-A as much as the next mom. I’m just learning to water my own grass instead of enviously looking at the other greener places we travel to. This column will be about motherhood, parenting, and homemaking for the most part. Maybe I’ll share ow we do a low-key Thanksgiving, or a very, very high-key Christmas. I might write about the year my husband had to help me overcome the holiday blues for the kids sake altogether. Most importantly, I don’t ever want this column to make another mama think she’s not doing enough. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are, you’re doing great, keep it up. Sing it with me: no-one is doing it allllll!
