Beginning
words.
As
I write these words – the first words in a long while in this
mostly-defunct blog – it lacks only a couple of hours being exactly
the time one year ago that I left Topeka, Kansas, with everything I
felt I had to have packed into my little Kia Soul, AC/DC, Guns N
Roses, Credence Clearwater, The Eagles, Triumph, Gordon Lightfoot,
and many others blasting the night and the miles away as I drove
toward the town I had left almost exactly 30 years before: Rome,
Georgia.
Rome hasn't
changed all that much in the last 30 years, at least on the outside.
All the things I always liked about being from Rome are there: small
town, friendly folks for the most part, sweet tea most everywhere,
Krystal, and all the things Southern that helped form who I am.
Mostly, my family was still here. That's what brought me back.
But, as always
happens, I had certainly changed in the last 30 years. I wasn't the
same person, in many ways, as the 18-year-old preacher-boy who left
for Dallas, Texas, sure he was going to be God's next
Big-Deal-Preacher-Man, ready to change the world. Back then, fresh
out of high school, I was a religious zealot, dogmatic to the point
of legalistic in what I believed, and proud to be a part of the
emerging Religious Right that would evolve into the
nightmare-disaster-embarrassment that the Tea Party represents to me
now. I was, barely 18, a dues-paying member of the John Birch
Society (which, for those who may not know about that particular
group, was more right-wing, anti-communist, paranoid, and
conspiracy-driven than anything the Tea Party ever came up with). I
was supremely confident that I knew the answers, even if I didn't
know what the questions were yet.
Thirty years
later, I returned, not religious (though my faith is as vital and
vibrant as ever, even if it wouldn't fit into the box it used to fit
into), certainly not part of the Religious Right, with plenty of
questions and very few answers.
“What?
This ain't Texas!”
For years, whenever I thought about getting off the road, I thought
I would move back to Dallas – Texas has always been where my heart
has felt most at home (and
I wrote about Texas a while back in this blog in a six-part series
called “My
Texas Odyssey” if you want to read it).
But, after my grandmother (“Nanny” to me) died in December,
2012, something changed, and my heart began to yearn to be closer to
my flesh-and-blood family. I have recounted some of that story in
previous
entries of this blog.
Anyway,
last year, feeling the call toward family, and feeling ready to get
off the road after almost 10 years traveling the highways of this
country in a big truck, I started making plans to leave Kansas. By
the time I was ready to leave one year ago, I had the promise of a
job that would get me off the road, and, to my surprise (because this
happened after I had already decided to move back to Georgia), I had
gotten back in touch with an old acquaintance from high school days,
and there was (I felt, hoped) the potential for something good.
Within
the first two weeks of crossing the Georgia state line, the promised
job had evaporated, the potential relationship had ended, my small
bit of money was gone, and things looked pretty bleak. Then
there followed four months looking for work, being pushed against the
ropes financially, and a very dark time for me in every way.
Finally, in December, I found work, still driving a truck, but able
to be home every night. But then, even after that, health problems
(including a heart problem that required a stent to be put in),
medical bills, and plans-gone-awry kept me in a whirlpool of
emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual chaos (some of that is
reflected in my last
entry in this blog from October).
From
the vantage point of a year, looking back, I can say with great
confidence: if I had known what it would entail, I would never have
moved back to Georgia. And there have been times in the past year
that I sincerely, desperately, wished I hadn't.
“And
yet . . .”
In spite of all the challenges, struggles, disappointments,
surprises, setbacks . . . even though I wouldn't have chosen this
particular part of the journey on purpose . . . one year later, I
know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, in exactly the
situation I am intended to be in.
I
am here. I am connected deeply to people I love and who love me. I
have a job that I mostly enjoy, working more hours that I would have
dreamed were possible when I was looking for any kind of work, and I
am doing well physically.
I
am learning the lessons I came here to learn (even if it's sometimes
kicking and screaming, lashing out in anger, and being put in
time-out pretty often): trust, acceptance, purpose, possibility.
I
am grateful, I am at peace, and all is well. And that's really all I
ever wanted.
Until
next time, I leave you with this reminder: you are loved, you
matter, you have a purpose. Love and peace to all who may read these
words.
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