Sally's swan song

By SALLY Y. HAYES

Mt. Pleasant News

Yes, this is my final column for the Mt. Pleasant News.

My fiancé and I have decided to move; we believe that opportunity is knocking at our door and now is our chance to embark on a new adventure. We will be heading a couple of hundred miles south and each plan to go back to school for further education.

We?ll be back to visit, I?m certain of it.

I have left Mt. Pleasant for extended times before and enjoyed the adventure each time, however this leave is different ? more nerve-racking (I swear I see a new gray hair each day).

The summer before high school I left for nearly a month for the first time without my parents or sister for a student ambassador trip to Australia. This first night I was terribly homesick, but knowing that I had home to come back to made the rest of the trip enjoyable.

Four years later I went across the Mississippi to Monmouth College for my bachelor?s degree. Again, the homesickness showed its ugly head, but knowing that I could return home on the weekends and would see my parents at my weekend soccer matches made that first semester go by smoothly.

However, by the time I wore that mortarboard and crossed the stage it felt as though I had finally found my home away from home and I had to depart ? leaving friends, roommates and teammates that used to live just across the hall and whom I ate each meal with now states away.

In 2008, the summer of the floods, I spent the summer in Ireland on an archaeological dig. I hopped on a plane in O?Hare and landed in Dublin, not knowing another soul on the project. But by the time I packed up the suitcase I had lived out of for weeks I felt that I had found another home away from home.

Each time I left, I came returned home, to Mt. Pleasant. Now it?s time to establish a new home and nervous hardly describes how I?m feeling.

Luckily, this time I?m not going alone, I have my best friend alongside me.

Mt. Pleasant is and will always be my hometown. The only time I moved in my childhood was two blocks down the street. I began my education at Grasshopper Green and wore a maroon cap and gown following my senior year at MPCHS.

I played my first soccer match at East Lake Park and went on to play at the collegiate level. I wish I could count how many hours I spent out there over the years.

I enjoy running to the grocery store and it taking longer than expected because Will and I run into people we know.

And I?ll miss hearing the marching band practicing in the foggy mornings this fall, each note bringing a memory to mind of the time I spent toting my trumpet around. After all, I met my future husband in Mr. DePriest?s marching band.

Yes, Mt. Pleasant has been my home, with a memory around each corner. I?d like to extend a hank you to the community that has shaped who I am today.

But now is Will?s and my chance to establish a new home, our home.