published on Facebook on August 14, 2026

The middle kid is the grounding force of a family. 

And all of a sudden we are on I-80 between Des Moines and Newton, Iowa where we will stop for Walmart to get Liam‘s tires rotated and we’re passing Mitchellville, Iowa and all of a sudden I am flashing back to when I was on the way home from ING from Des Moines about this time of day after having quit because I was pregnant and I didn’t think that I could work in a call center even if it was a Series 6-licenses job, with all the terrible morning sickness I was having at the time. I didn’t know what I was gonna do and then two weeks later I found out that I was having a miscarriage.

I thought of Mary and Red Cross chapter in Marshalltown when we passed the Highway 65 exit for Marshalltown and I’m remembering that I’m terrified for Liam not because of Grinnell College at all but because I hated Iowa because I was so far away from home and I really don’t know if I can let our baby stay here. I’m terrified he is gonna hate this like I did and I remember the early days of our marriage because we were newlyweds and Jared’s dear Mama had died and I was also sad and I just didn’t even know if our marriage was gonna survive and then all of a sudden there was a newborn in the NICU and Sara came and sat with me and Lindsey brought the kids to the NICU to see the baby. All I wanted to do is go home and all of a sudden the job at Fernbank opened up and it was my ticket home.

I had not counted on the idea at all that bringing Liam to Grinnell was gonna remind me of how much I hated Iowa because reality is I have been complaining for weeks and months and years that I felt like I didn’t have a place to Carrollton, but it was worse in Iowa. And all I’ve really wanted for twenty years is to be back in Atlanta.

And I have to remember that this is not about me and Liam carries absolutely no baggage about Grinnell or Iowa or the newlywed days or even Porter in the NICU; that Liam wasn’t more than a dream in our head at the time and that he will be just fine and that this is an adventure for him. And at the same time, I’m glad that we’re here because it reminds me, too, that a place is just a place is a place and the people are what matters. There were some lovely people that we met in Grinnell and I hated to leave them when we moved away to Georgia.

But this drive that is so familiar to me because it’s so many trips to ING and to church at Westminster Presbyterian and Des Moines and back-and-forth to Blank Children’s Hospital and shopping and the million other reasons we found ourselves in Des Moines weekend after weekend or even on weeknights; on Wednesday nights.

I don’t know how many times I made this trip but the road is all tore up in ways I don’t remember it being in 2005. And I missed the turn for 235 because my way was telling me that I really should keep going on and I forgot that 235 is actually a shortcut and Liam tried to tell me by getting over into the other lane that we should get off and I totally miss that.

But the landscape isn’t completely familiar because there are new buildings and new hotels and things that weren’t there twenty years ago. The Walmart in Newton, Iowa is there on Iowa Speedway now and I have recollections of a Speedway being built in Newton, Iowa for NASCAR when we were here, but Walmart was not on Iowa Speedway Road. So I don’t know if there’s a new Walmart in Iowa or if the Walmart the highway has been renamed don’t know but I’m hoping that Aldi is still there and I’m trying not to be a mess.

And we’re in Newton, Iowa getting Liam’s tires rotated at Walmart and I forgot how much I would stick out like a sore thumb with the way I dress here; with my septum and nostril piercings and too much jewelry and leggings. And the Walmart is indeed the same Walmart just the road name has changed. And the Aldi is a newer bigger building across the street from Walmart instead of being up on Highway 6 like I remembered. And Aldi here is much, much bigger and nicer and I scored a blue jean dress in the Aisle of Shame at Aldi because not much is more midwestern fashion than a blue jean dress and that won’t make it to Aldi in Georgia, I am certain.

The middle kid is a grounding force for a family and Liam is certainly that and I feel like I am losing my center of locus.

Except everything is different enough here— even if fashion sense is definitely the same— that this trip we are on feels like a different, newer adventure that it is, not some return to the scene of new marriage difficulties.

I’m pretty sure I have waited in this waiting room of the tire center in the Walmart of Newton, Iowa before. Except this time, the marriage did last, I’m sitting by a child I was pretty sure would never exist when I was swearing Porter would be an only child after those NICU days. And that child isn’t a child himself anymore: he is a young man who thankfully is more amused than embarrassed to have his parents along for the current ride.

And somebody moved my cheese again: the lug nuts are stripped on Liam’s tires, so no rotation today.

This is the point where I am grateful Jared still knows people in Grinnell for mechanic recommendations.

But we are here; and I do not actually want 515 Broad Street back because apparently the A/C is dead as evidenced by the window units now throughout the house. That little house I loved so well looks positively so awful it is unrecognizable.

And a last minute upgrade at Hotel Grinnell means we are here for both nights instead of having to switch hotels at the last minute.

You can’t go home, but you can take a kid to college. And survive the experience relatively unscathed.