It was an awesome weekend. I went to a family reunion up in the pine thicket of East Texas. The red clay dirt is still on my boots! It's been 3.5 years since I've been to my old stomping grounds. I can tell you this, it's just as slow and rural as it has ever been. I can't tell you how many times I got asked "Man, when are you moving back up here?" or "Don't you miss being gone from the place you grew up and the people you grew up with?" My answer is always the same to those... I tell them that I don't miss it much and that where I grew up has very little to no opportunity to support my career choice and means of survival.
It's a small place with a lot of small minds still roaming about and the conversations I have there are very simple most of the time. I don't bring up things that involve critical thinking or stuff like my political and religious beliefs because there'd be an exorcism by the mernin'! Get thee behind me, Satan! Y'all know the crowd I'm talking about. The ones that want to be in everyone's business to try and tell them how to live their lives... That's not my cup o' tea.
I've been gone from there for the last 16 years and haven't looked back. I had to get away from there in order to expand my life, if that makes any sense... The majority of the cousins my age have also moved away, but it was good to see all of them. We put down a gallon handle of Strawberry Blonde and stayed up late cracking jokes and bullshittin' out by the bonfire all night.
I remember some of the people who've never left there telling me I'd be back home needing help and that the world was going to chew me up and spit me out... This is for them.
1 comment:
I have people like that in my family, makes visiting interesting at times to say the very least. Not everyone can grasp moving away to expand one's own horizons. Sounds like a good reunion tho. I got one to go to around thanksgiving.
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