You'll grow up to be just like them, they said.

i remember when i was growing up and people would always say, you will grow up to be just like your parents. i found this strange. i never believed them and i knew that it most definitely was not going to happen to me. my parents and i were as close as people can come to polar oppisites. i spent most of my adolecent years screaming at them and telling them they just "didn't get me". raise your hand if you were ever a 13 year old girl? enough said. i also remember my parents dragging my sister amanda and i across the county into every antique shop they happen to cast their eyes upon. those were some of my most hates years. sitting in the back of my dad's big blue van watching the road ahead, praying in my mind; fervently that if there were any antique shops, art gallaries, flea markets, fruit stand, anything that would cause my farther to put his van in park and demand we all get out to "check it out", that the Lord above would in his mercy and for the sake of my sanity just make them dissapear. Please! Yes, we hated those years. Once one was spotted the groans from the back seat began, and at times even tears. the thought of going to look at someones old stuff, who is most likely dead was just the most unattractive and annoying thing in the world to me, at 13. i can say without doubt this continued on throughout my high school years. also, i found my parents house to be heinously decoreted. in my opinion oriental rugs should be banned and if one happens to surface we should wait until winter rolls aronud and use it for firewood, hey.. we are in a recession. Yes, that was me. i was almost positive at that point that was the way i would always feel about it. i didn't like art, i didn't like his music, i didn't like those movies that included someones life story, i didn't understand why someone would ever enjoy crying. happy tears, bittersweet as people call it. i didn't like strawberrys fresh off a stand on the side of the road, and that goes for corn and blueberrys too! i didn't like family reunions, home videos, old pictures anything that didn't pertain to me and my life at that very moment was uninteresting and irrevelant. then i found myself being 21 and living in on my own, in my own world where for the first time i had to define who i was all alone. i had to represent danielle dudek by being danielle dudek to people who didn't know danielle dudek. it was at that time during a conversation with a friend, i unexpectedly spoke the sentence "i'm just like my dad'. i had no idea! when did this happen? who knows, but it had. i am in every stretch of the word a clone of my father. we think the same, act the same, dream the same, aspire the same and mostly love the same. we enjoy the things in life that bring us joy just by looking or hearding. we don't need much to be fulfilled. we don't need time or space to process the goodness the world has to offer, it jumps out at us as if it's needing our approval. life to me and my father is an everyday inspiration and collection of glorious things. as i said in the beginning about hating antiques and everything about them, that one day did change. the same went for art, music, movies and even happy tears, which to be honest are now my favorite kind.

i love to wonder,
i love to wonder around the streets of downtown and walk into these old stores that smell of dust, with the lingering sound of an old record player streaming through the cracked window. i love the clothing that feels like it's been worn by many people or sat in someones closet since 1925. i love the furniture that looks like it's had many meaningful conversations on it. think about it, you buy a new couch. it's new, never used, and now it's yours. you sit on it, break it in and start filling it's fibers with memories of years past, talks, decisions and lifes milestones. to me, that is wonderful. what is more wonderful is finding a couch whose fibers already contain those things and adding your own. it's broken in and ready to be used, it's ready to be there for you when you need to lay your head upon it with a bowl of kettle korn and a good movie. it's ready for your mascara drips as one of lifes trials sneeks up on you . it's ready for your jumping feet when you have accomplished your dreams, it's ready to help a new little one sit up for the first time, after all.. it's been doing it for years. what a wonderful thought that is.