Country Roads, Take Me Home

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere

Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money

We won't have to drive too far
Just across the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

"Fast Car" - Tracy Chapman


So, it hit home one day at work. I am eccentrically different. I think I always sort of knew, but didn't want to realize it for a long time. I travel extensively in my profession. I go to different parts of the country and talk to different people in order to help them do their jobs more proficiently. I was up North (that phrase alone hints to the content of this blog) and launched into my monologue about a weed eater. It's a lovely little ditty of a tale about customer loyalty, but it fell upon deaf ears like a huge anchor on a dry lake. Silence. Crickets. No one got me! Why? Up North, there are no weed eaters. Why, they thought (as I rambled incessantly for several minutes) I was telling a story about an ANIMAL! Apparently, this group of co-workers was trying to mentally envision some giant, prehistoric anteater type creature who ran around and ate Paleozoic weeds!! I picture a redwood/fern hybrid that's roughly 50 ft tall. Turns out, they call my deep South weed eater a WEED WHACKER. Who knew? Case study #2: I know someone who is a recent transplant to Texas from another state. When you really take stock of the people in our larger communities who we interact with daily, are any of them Texas natives? Increasingly, as with any metropolitan city, we are comprised of many people who originally hail from all sorts of places. Cool, right? Still, she looked at me and said, "You know, when I moved to Texas I imagined all the girls were Southern Belles and sounded like you, but no one does. Everyone here sounds very Midwestern. When you opened your mouth on the first day, I thought - YES! Finally, someone who actually sounds Southern!" Great, now all I need to do is show up in my cowboy boots and talk about J.R. Ewing. On another business trip, I became very animated - typically, that's when my Texas accent is most obvious. Realizing I had lapsed into country girl euphemism speak, I apologized and explained that I'd really tried hard to keep the accent at bay all week. The consensus from the group was that I failed miserably. I thought: I am uber cosmopolitan and professional. Hear me not sound Southern! They thought: We can't understand anything she's saying. Is this even the King's English? Why do her words have 377 syllables?

Now, at first I was quite disheartened. We place so much self-value on the perception of others, after all. I think back to one of my first "car dates" with a boy when I was 16. It was Saturday afternoon and we were going to see a movie. I spent an entire week teaching myself how to do finger waves on my long hair, a la Veronica Lake. I thought I looked tres chic! Whatever prompted me to ask this question, I will never, ever know. As we approached the entrance ramp to the highway, bluebonnets and waist tall weeds in the background, concrete and highway bridges in the horizon, I asked this poor, clueless boy if he also thought the city was far, far more exciting than our dumb, boring life out in the sticks. He seemed non-plussed. I asked if he didn't think I belonged in the city - didn't I seem like a sophisticated fish out of the water out on the dirt road? Why, I would fit far more nicely with a slick, modern high rise apartment address than with my rural route and box # that no one could find on their first try, right? Finally picking up on the fact that his answer might dictate the entire mood of this date, he grappled to find something to say that would both placate me and shut me up: "I guess you're like a citified country girl?" Egad. My spirits were dashed. All I wanted was to be so different that the person I was.

Fast forward 30 years. I finally get it. Everybody wants to be somebody they're not. Everyone wants to reinvent themselves. None of us thinks we're quite good enough in our original packaging. Part of this original thought is good, I think. Shouldn't we as the human race want to aspire to more? Doesn't this form evolution in a certain aspect - both the scientific form of evolution AND the spiritual type of evolution. Shouldn't we all want to be better, make less mistakes, improve our existence. I say yes. Somewhere on this journey to perfection that's never enough and never attainable, I drove my inner-self jalopy into a ginormous pot hole. I broke my self-perception axle and had to have my life towed to an existential garage. Those who love me have been working on my chassis for some years now. I think I'm almost ready to be a road warrior once again. I think I'm ready to get behind the steering wheel and start moving along toward my goal of being the person I should be. This time, it will be different. This time, I have GPS. This time, I'll use the compass. I never did find the city, after all. I kept driving all around the outskirts, but there was never an exit ramp that would take me where I wanted to go. Today, I drive again. This time, I'm headed back to the country. All hail the power of Indian Paintbrushes and Buttercups. This time I will embrace sweet tea and banana pudding. I won't be embarrassed for people to hear the twang in my voice, the word y'all, the mixology of our Southern words (whatch'alldoin?).

I think I finally realized I am different. The real me is different than anyone else I know. It's time I embraced that. To do otherwise would be criminal. So.....as we end this first week of Spring, I encourage us all to do some self-introspection. Pop the hood on your life. Roll down your windows. Drive through your life's neighborhood and understand that whether good or bad, those are the things that form the essence of you. Turns out, the things you're trying to banish may just be the things that others adore about you most.

You can put your therapy check in the mail today!!!! Peace, love, grits 'n Aqua Net, y'all!