Just a Small Town Girl...

I was born in a town of 200 people.  My family knew everyone in town and it seemed as though everyone knew us.  Later, I moved to a town of 1,000 and then again to a town of 5,000, but it was always the same--close knit, annoyingly nosy, and overwhelmingly loving.

Now, I'm in a city of over 200,000 people, sharing a campus dorm with 500 people who this is the smallest city they have ever lived it.  200,000 people, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why I felt so alone.  This city has hundreds more shopping stores than any other town I've lived in.  There's more street lights than I can count, and I have more friends than I have in my entire life combined.

But I'm alone.

What I love about home is there's always a family.  Whether I'm at school, camp, home, work, or whatever, we always have a close little family of our own wherever we go.  We know each other inside and out and would not hesitate for one moment to laugh with each other or cry on each others' shoulders.
Here I don't have that. I may have had at one time the makings of a family, but as always people are caught up in life and slowly scatter away. But I understand.  It's hard to form a family with people you don't know well, and it's hard to get to know them without mutual understanding and tolerance.

I say "tolerance" because it is the minimum I am asking of the people around me.  You don't have to understand why I crave country music in the middle of the night, and you probably never will.  You don't have the memories of my grandfather driving in his old beat up orange pick-up truck and my grandmother watching CMT all morning long as she spends hours on a delicious dinner (not lunch) made from scratch.  You don't know the comfort that music brings me, but I do ask that you be tolerant of it.  Don't make cracks about my "hick" background or "country cowgirl" tastes. It's judgement and intolerance like this that makes it so you will never know me.

The smell of cow manure may completely disgust you.  I understand, but don't wrinkle up your nose when I talk about working cattle with my daddy or cleaning horse stalls with my little brother.  It's what I've grown up doing.  It's taught me many life lessons, and it's strengthened my relationship with the two best men in my life to unbreakable bonds.

I'm sorry.

But I will always drive with my windows down blaring Jason Aldean pretending I'm surrounded by corn fields.  I will always take a deep breath when passing by a pasture of cattle. I will always country swing dance at every opportunity.  I will always believe the wild flowers growing in the untrimmed ditches are far more beautiful than anything that could ever be grown in a greenhouse. And I will always love my family with an unhindered passion and unbreakable love.

I will always hang on to what my family and my past have given me.  It strengthens the love being stretched over miles and miles of road between this city and my little town of home grown family love.