Homesick

Can I just confess that I miss Nashville a whole heckofalot??

I think I am gonna write an ode to my favorite city, the city where I became an adult. The town where I truly fell in love with my husband, learned how to be a wife and a woman. And how to separate the two. . This is the place I started snipping my apron strings, and set that docile girl free. Of course, I don't think they will ever be severed.. . .They are now just thinner and run over fiber optic cables.

While Memphis' skyline is always impressive, coming across that Mississippi River bridge. .. My heart swells when I see the familiar lights of the Bat Building. Driving into Nashville at around 10pm Sunday night, I feel like I am being embraced by an old friend. The flickering of the Capitol and the other "skyscrapers" in town, blinking me a warm welcome in Morse code. Even at 1.5 million people, Music City is still a small town.

I was trying to wean myself from calling Tennessee, "back home" when I talk about the time in my life before Waco. I had kind of prided myself in my not-so-southern southern accent. My early years in Arkansas, the 3 formative years I spent in Washington . . .After I moved to Millington, I liked not being a Tennessean. It made me different from everyone. It made me special, distinctive. And now that I've left the Volunteer State, I long for it. I remember as a child, crying at night for my dear grandmother. . .2,000 miles away in Cash, AR. She was the embodiment of everything I knew. Everything familiar. And I find myself now, sometimes tearful at the distance from what I know.

Texas is a welcoming place. I've come in contact with some amazing people that will develop into life long friendships. Once we are able to invest some time in Waco, I know we can set down some roots, but Tennessee will always be my home. I just hope she remembers me when I come back.