Iowans in Montana

Amongst all the other excitement in my life, my parents came for a visit last week. It had been almost a year and a half since I had seen them and to be honest, I was nervous. Yeah, silly, huh? I was worried they wouldn't like it here, or that they wouldn't like me anymore. That's even sillier, but somehow I felt they were judging me right away. I know that they just want the best for me and want me to be happy, but who ever said that I wasn't?

The biggest thing they wanted to know about was why I don't go to church. OK, I haven't gone to church on a regular basis since forever ago, so this isn't really what their concern was. What they really wanted to know was why I turn more to Buddhism than anything. Okay, that's easy; when you've dated a Buddhist philosopher who is really into it, it's kind of hard not to also get interested in it as well. It just seems to fit now more than anything and I can relate more to it. I'm not a Buddhist though. I don't want to call myself anything because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter. All that really matters is that I know that meditating every day has helped me, and that is something I can for sure say I've gained from learning about Buddhism. It's just a different kind of praying than what my parents are used to, not that they pray every day.

Another inquiry they had was about me not eating meat (except for fish occasionally). Yeah, that is from my ex as well. It was just easier for me not to not eat meat since we cooked so many meals together from the beginning. What kept me at it was that I noticed I felt better, looked better, and all around was eating more healthy. Bad thing? Nope, not in my book.

Other than those few sticky points, their visit was a good one. I took them to Glacier National Park with my friend Amy and we took a lot of photos (of course). Mom was quite impressed with how beautiful everything was. We were lucky and saw six bears our first night, as well as a moose. A little bit of tension developed over a stupid thing, and kind of put a damper on our evening, but eventually it faded away, and all was back to normal.

My dad floated the river with me and a couple of friends while my mom went shopping, we grilled out in my backyard, checked out the River City Roots Festival, enjoyed the best pizza in town; Biga, and even got a couple games of Euchre in. All in all, it was a good visit. I'm glad they got to see where and what I've been up to for the past two years. They ended up leaving on Monday after lunch, a day early, but I was ok with that. Sometimes it is just downright exhausting entertaining people all of the time. I was ready to have my space back and I know that I will see them soon enough.