Friday Night Lights

Having lived abroad for two years, going on three, I find myself getting awfully sentimental around holidays.  I really get sentimental (sobbing tears, a stuffed up nose and holing up in my room ) on those holidays that consist of bbqs, pulled pork, fireworks, swimming, lemonade and tan lines on cute little bums. 

Holidays seem to be the one sure thing that can invoke the emotional stuff that comes along with missing home.  Missing all of the things that remind me of home and replaying snippets of memories that remind me how our family used to be.  

One of the things that I’ve realized also makes me miss home is the show Friday Night Lights.  I’ll wait a minute while you smirk and try to hide your smile.  It’s ok.  I understand that it’s a little bit of a combination of As The World Turns meets Coach meets Cheers.   

To me, it is a story of hope, trials, expectations, love, childhood, anger, family, and football. 

I miss football. 

I miss the football that my dad coached.  I miss the cohesiveness that I felt when I was on the field with him, even though he spent more time with those boys than he ever did with me. 

I miss the football that I grew up watching.  Hometown glories, those Huskers.  I watched them rise, I watched them fall.  I stuck firm as a fan throughout the ups and downs, throughout the coaching drama and still brag on them as my favorite team.

I miss the football that my oldest played back in the midwest before we moved.  I miss the feeling of being that proud mama who refused to sit down, and continued yelling - long after the play had been called - at the ref for what was OBVIOUSLY a horrible call. My heart raced when my son tackled the running back and ‘sat him down’.  I miss the community that was just a natural given when it meant those lights were getting turned on, come Friday. 

I miss the fact that when you lived in a small town, and had the high school sports community as your extended family, there was no shortage of people that you could turn to when you needed a hand up. 

Don't get me wrong, there was also the negative of small towns - that being the fact that everyone knew your business and whether you were having a carb-free weekend or an argument with your husband.

I am also desperately missing the way to a paycheck that we once had.  The “home for dinner” normal and suitcases that were packed for a business trip only once a quarter.  I ache for a lawn, for grass so green and perfectly soft under your feet that it was therapeutic to spread out every so often and just cloud gaze. 

Settling in to watch another episode of Friday Night Lights somehow reminded me of the woman and wife that I so desperately wish to become.  Reminded me of the marriage that I ache for.  For me, Friday Night Lights has not just been a tv show, not something that I tuned into every so often when it was convenient.

No, for me, the Taylor family has been my sanity in a new world that has not yet begun to feel like home.

This week's prompt at RemembeRED was ::

This week's prompt encouraged you to recall a television show from your past and write about the feelings it evokes and memories it triggers.