Hey y'all!

When I was in college, I decided I didn't like two things that I said: y'all (the widely accepted Southern form of the 2nd person plural) and warsh (the word wash with the intrusive r).

Warsh (other forms include dishwarsher, George Warshington, car warsh, etc) didn't really both me until I got to college.  Actually, for the most part, I didn't even realize that I was doing it or what I was doing.  My mom said warsh.  My dad said warsh.  My brother and sister said warsh.  It was normal to me.

It's wasn't until I took a Linguistics course on American dialects that I learned of the linguistic phenomenon known as the intrusive r, which is prominently found in the midwest, specifically in the word wash, that I even realized that I did it.

Now, as I've mentioned, I didn't grow up in the midwest, though I live here now.  I did live briefly in the midwest as a wee-one, but mostly I grew up on the east coast, because my dad was in the Navy.  (Generally Navy dudes have to live near water.) But environmental influences are only one factor for determining one's pronunciation.  A very influential factor is the pronunciation of your family.  My mom is from St. Louis and my dad is from Indianapolis.  They both exhibit the intrusive r, and thus all three of their vagabond children picked it up as well.

It wasn't that hard to purge my pronunciation of the intrusive r.  I just thought very consciously whenever I said the word wash and very deliberately did not include an r.  It probably sounded a little like "waaaash".  It took a few months, but then it was gone, and it's never come back.  Not even since moving to the midwest 10 years ago.

Now the y'all...

I have always been aware of the y'all.  Y'all is synonymous with southern living.  "Howdy y'all"  "Y'all come back now y'hear".  Everyone knows if you want to sound southern, all you have to do is say y'all.  Just like everybody knows if you want to sound like you are from Boston, all you have to do is say "Cawfee tawk" or "Pak the cah".

But for a long time, I did not want to embrace my southern roots.  Whenever someone would hear I was from Virginia, they'd say "oh, a southern girl" or "oh, yea, I can hear it in your accent."  But the thing was, I didn't feel like a southern girl and I definitely didn't have a southern accent, well, a traditional southern accent anyway.  You see, when you live in rural areas of Virginia you do tend to follow the linguistic features of southern dialects, however when you live in an urban area like I grew up, especially one populated by military personnel...who come from all over the U.S., you do not.

Between Virginia Beach not being a heavy southern dialect influence, and both of my parents being a heavy midwestern dialect influence, my accent usually fell much more inline with the North midland (midwestern) accent....except for y'all.  I most definitely said y'all.  A lot.

In my sophomore year of college, I went to a midwestern cousin's wedding.  I hadn't seen that part of my family in almost a decade, not since my grandma had passed away.  And know what I noticed?  No one said y'all.  They all said you guys.  Right then, I decided that I was was going to purge myself of y'all, just like I had of warsh.  In fact, you could say I was going to wash y'all out of my dialect.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)  And I did.

And for about 10 years, it stuck.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it would have stuck forever, just like warsh/wash has, except a funny thing happened.  The longer I've been living in the midwest, the more I miss my coastal southern home.  The more I missed hearing the "Hey y'all".  So much so, that I consciously decided to replace my you guys with y'all.  And just like when I trained myself to stop saying it, pausing and mentally correcting myself to say you guys instead, I was now pausing and correcting myself to say y'all.

But unlike training myself to say you guys, the reverting to y'all thing took much much less effort and much less time.  In fact, it came back so easily, it was almost like it'd never even been gone.  Like it had just been sitting there in my brain, waiting to be re-released all of this time. So, I guess I really am a southern girl after all.  It just took being away for a few years to really appreciate my home and my southern roots.

I guess what they say is true...absence really does make the heart grow fonder, y'all.

P.S. My little grammar lesson for the day: It's y'all.  Not ya'll.  Y'all is a contraction for you all.  Ya'll is a contraction for ya will, which is not a thing.

Jinya Beach

When Thing 1 and Thing 2 were just little bean sprouts in my belly, Superman and I had to decide where we were going to raise these little beings.  At the time, we were living in Buckeye Country, not anywhere near either of our families, and we knew that we didn't want to stay there.  But the question was, would we go back to the Hoosier state to be closer to his family, or back to the Old Dominion to be near mine?

I was raised a military brat, so I never lived near any of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins.  In fact, being that my dad was in the Navy (meaning we were always stationed in a coastal city), and my parents were both born and raised in the midwest, we were lucky when we got to see those relatives more than once a year.  We usually did a summer trip out, and occasionally got to go during the winter holidays.  Growing up, I desperately envied my friends who were close (geographically and emotionally) with their extended relatives, and that is always something I wanted for my kids.

So, in the end, we decided to move back to the Hoosier state for a few reasons:

• Superman's parents are retired.  Mine still work full time
• Superman has a huge extended family (his dad is one of 9 and his mom is one of 8), with lots of cousins.  And his two brothers, who both have kids around Thing 1 and Thing 2's age, also live here.  My sister has two kids, but they are in their late teens (and she lives 600 miles from my parents anyway) and my brother doesn't have any kids (or is even married yet).  And obviously I have no cousins or extended family there.
• Where he is from in the midwest is MUCH cheaper to live than where I'm from on the east coast.  We were able to buy a 4 bedroom house with a full basement for what we would have gotten a two bedroom condo for where I grew up.

But, life isn't black and white, and our choice is still sometimes hard to deal with.

I miss my friends and their kids terribly.  And they are all so close in age to my boys...they'd be perfect to grow up with.  Their un-cousins.  Superman only has one friend here that even has kids.

Their first year we made it home four times.  But since then, we are finding ourselves only able to visit about twice a year, because of time, work, money, etc.  My kids started referring to my parents as the "other grandma" and the "other grandpa".

This past Thanksgiving, after an 11 month absence, we were able to take a short visit back and see the other grandparents, my brother, my sister and her family, and most of my friends and their kids.  But the visit, like always, felt so rushed.  I felt like I had 100 people to visit in 72 hours.  I felt pulled in so many different directions, and felt like I was disappointing everyone and wasn't spending quality time with anyone.

After being guilted by one of my good friends, who bless her heart just wanted some time with me, I turned to Superman in tears and told him that I hated the emotional blackmail part of the trip so much that it makes me never want to come back for visits.  Since I know I'm invariable going to let someone (often multiple someones) down by not giving them the time they feel they deserve.  I left that trip relieved to be heading home and seriously dreading going back.

But Thing 1 and Thing 2 don't know about all of that.  They just knew that they loved being with their other grandma and grandpa, and taking their pack of dogs on long walks.  They loved playing with their aunt and uncles and cousins.  And loved playing with mommy's friends' kids.  They loved going to the beach.  Almost weekly since Thanksgiving, they have asked when we were going to "go far away again to Jinya Beach."  They have stopped calling my parents the other grandma and grandpa.  And I often overhear them playing with stuffed doggies, calling them my parents' dogs names.

On Sunday, I decided to surprise the boys by taking them to visit the dog shelter.  When they asked where we were going and I said it was a surprise, they asked "Are we going far away to Jinya Beach?"  When I said no, Thing 2 bursted into tears asking me why we couldn't go.  And it reminded me of those times as a child when I would literally cry from missing my midwest grandparents so much.  And it was almost as if I could feel all of those bitter and anxious feelings melting away from Thanksgiving, as I comforted my little boy and heard myself saying that maybe we can plan a trip to Jinya Beach for Spring Break.

Dear Santa

After almost every trip home I fall into a mild depression (not the clinically diagnosed kind). Because during those few days back in my hometown, I get to spend short but valuable quality time with my best friends. These are woman who I have known for years. Before babies. Before husbands. Heck, most of them before I could drink, or vote, or drive! 17 years and more. I love them so much. And miss them every day.

Sure, thanks to cell phones, emails, and Facebook, I don’t miss them nearly as much as I would have a 100 years ago when we could have only sent written correspondence that would take a week or more to deliver. Keeping in touch now is much more convenient and economical. But still, Skyping doesn’t replace sitting next to them on the couch, sipping a glass of wine, and laughing together. Or crying together. And I can’t do that from 800 miles away.

And I miss that they know me. Really know me. Know that I’m sarcastic, opinionated, and bawdy. Now that I am passionate about important things and irrelevant things like which peanut butter is the best. That I have the best intentions despite having a propensity for putting my foot in my mouth. That I love gossip, but not in a mean spirited way. That I often need to bitch and complain, just to get things off my chest before I can get any clarity on the situation. That I’m a loyal friend, but I also believe in being honest even though I know it’d be easier to just tell you what you want to hear. They know that I can be unintentionally judgmental, and they help me work on changing that about myself.

With them, I don’t have to act smarter than I am. Or to censor myself. Act more pious. Or polite. Or wittier. Or more informed. I can be exactly who I am, and they love me and accept me just for that. I feel safe and unjudged.

As a married mother/adult living in a university town, I have found it very hard to make friends. Sure, I have some wonderful acquaintances, but that is all they are. Nice people that I exchange pleasantries with in social situations.

How are you?

I’m great. How are you?

Wonderful.

How is the family? Good?

That’s terrific! Man this weather is beautiful/terrible/crazy/unexpected.

Yes, isn’t it? But that is Indiana for you.

True. Well, it was good to see you.

Awesome, it was good to see you, too.

But for one reason or another it never seems to go past this very superficial level into any more meaningful relationships.

Part of the problem is that because this is a university town, most people I meet seem to see their time here as temporary. Just a bookmark in their life until they move on to their real jobs, their real homes, their real lives. They don’t seem interested in putting much effort into making good friends here, since they themselves are only here on loan until they finish their degrees or find permanent positions elsewhere. And I will admit, back when I lived here as a graduate student in the early 2000s, I was the same way.

The other problem is that when you were young, it didn’t take much to establish a connection. You thought they were fun and funny and they thought the same about you.  But now, you might like her but your husband doesn’t care for him. Or your husbands get along but you and she have nothing to talk about. Or you both like the couple, but you can’t stand their kid and don’t really want them around your kids. Or worse…they don’t have kids, so they just can’t understand your schedule and why you always turn down their invitations to go meet for drinks at 9:00 pm on a school night.

Superman doesn’t seem as phased about not having friends as I am. Honestly, between having me and his parents nearby…he seems quite content with all of his acquaintances. But I want, no, I NEED some girlfriends! And not the kind I can only reach out and touch through a keyboard, but the fleshy kind. The kind that will show up at my house unannounced on a Saturday and sit and drink a cup of hot chocolate with me while we watch the kids play in the snow in the backyard. The kind that we have a monthly game night with, when you bring the kids’ pajamas, because you know the fun will go way past their bedtime.

Oh, and not to be too picky, but I want one that mothers similar to me. Someone that doesn’t feed their kids McDonald’s at every meal, but doesn’t think Ronald McDonald is the devil either. Someone who doesn’t put coke in their one year old’s sippy cup, but doesn’t feed them only organic seaweed juice. Someone who believes in discipline, but also believes that children are children and that 4 year olds shouldn’t be expected to conform to adult standards of politeness and properness. Someone who doesn't chronically read parenting advice books. Someone who I can ask parenting advise from, but isn’t offended if I don’t take it. A mother who is realistic about their love for their child, and doesn’t insist that they are god’s gift to the world and they poop skittles and rainbows. A mother who likes spending time with her children, not one who always wants to do “just girls” things because she is desperate to get away from them at every opportunity.

I know my list is not unreasonable. I know this, because I know these women. And if this were a perfect world, I’d live next door to them in Virginia Beach and still have my amazing in-laws living just 45 minutes away.

But until then, I can just say:

Dear Santa Claus,

Please, please, please bring me a friend this year.  I’ve been very good all year and I think I deserve it.

Love,

Me

P.S. She must believe in Santa Claus.