This is my little nook on the net to tell some story, perhaps my own. Ignore bad grammar, odd sentence structure, and the occasional random comma placement, otherwise take a seat and stay awhile, company is always welcome
Friday, May 12, 2006
A roundabout
It will sound silly that I, a 22-year-old woman, feel as if I’m back in High School, but it is true. Coming home was a breath of fresh air, and death warrent at the same time. My longing for the Ozarks is unquenchable, I find myself staring constantly longing to be outside, a rarity for me, yet coming back to small town life was not on the top 1000 list of things to do. Walking through the local Wal-Mart, looking like I’d not ever seen a brush, I ran into several people who I have managed for the past 4 years to see hid nor hair of. People always ask me where I am and what I’m doing and with a congenial smile I reply. I then inquire into their lives, because after it would be rude to not care in the least. The looks on their faces when they see me, I’m not sure if it smug pride that they are still snotty and beautiful, or shock that I, the girl fighting to get out, came back. Overall I spend my life making my own way. Once I leave the town limits I don’t look back, and now I see three months of constant battles with my inner pride over escaping. I have never understood the appeal of living here. Everyone knows your business, your last name makes you, being “good” enough is about whom you marry and when you marry them, and after 7 everything shuts down. Perhaps I create this insane idea of what small town life is really about, but in my mind it has always been and will always be about politics here. Don’t get me wrong; there are a hundred things I love about small town America as well. Its nice to have grown up with the same kids and have those people still be apart of my life, to have had a relationship with my teachers because of smaller class sizes, to have been a star in theater because I had few people to compete with, a country with boundless beauty a stones throw away, and a slower pace of life. It is a paradox being here. To find the freedom that awaits me this summer I have to let go of a lot of things, mainly my Pride. Having Anne here for a few days was pure delight, merging my Oklahoma life with my Missouri life, two pieces of my puzzle that are typically separated. While driving between Branson and my hometown I watched the rain cleanse the landscape and the beauty of this part of the country overtook me. So perhaps this summer isn’t going to be an easy escape, but I’m home.
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4 comments:
Oh, I sympathize. I'm sorry that the small town was so hard on you. I come from an even smaller town, and I left with the specific purpose of never coming back (except for short visits to family). So far I haven't, but I have settled outside another small town. Life in the country is wonderful in many ways. If only the humans were not so horrible so often
Hi Megan,
it is always nice to see what you are writing and what ingeneral has become of you. So many years have passed, people have changed and yet remained something they carried around before. I wish I could meet you again, I wish I could not only preserve memoires but refresh and make them come to live again....
So you have free time on your hands? Maybe, yes?
Wanna get together and see what kind of cultural disaster that might be? :)
Email me. It's on my blog profile. I'm game. (As opposed to "gamey", which is an entirely different matter!)
Yeah, I'm the one who's gamey.
But for you, I'll even shower.
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