It's All Wrapped Up

In August 2005,  I could not wait to leave Chattanooga, TN.  I was 18, bored, and ready for a big change.  And so I moved to New York City to begin my freshman year of college.  I believed New York would make me stronger, smarter, more bold, more daring.  In many ways, it did.  In those first promising days in Morningside Heights, I also began to realize that New York would cement my "Southernness" in a way I had never expected.  Being from Tennessee suddenly became one of my defining characteristics.  Chattanooga became a never ending source of stories to share with my fascinated and shocked "Yankee" friends.  Telling tales about my single-sex high school's bizarre traditions became a favorite pastime, and I bragged more than any human being ever should about Chattanooga's famous pedestrian bridge. 


As clichéd as it is, it is completely true that it took leaving Chattanooga to make me appreciate my hometown and my Southern roots.  But I still loved New York.  I loved the crowds and the chaos and the competition, the food and the friends - I loved absolutely everything about it.  Then one day I didn't.  It was like a switch had flipped overnight, and I woke up one morning hating the sweltering subway platforms, dreading the sidewalk traffic, and crumbling at the thought of another tense interaction with a fellow New Yorker.  Just like that, I was done.  I'm sure that this process was in fact more gradual than I imagine it to be.  Maybe one day I'll stop and explain more about the last five years to you and to myself and perhaps I'll understand what changed about New York for me, but all that really matters for now is that it's June 2010, and I'm sitting in Queens surrounded by boxes.  In six days, I'm moving back to Chattanooga, TN.

How the hell did that happen?  Well, if you've ever doubted that God has a plan for your life, just let me tell you about my last six months! It might just make you a believer in that pesky, overused line from Jeremiah 29. However, there's plenty of time to tell you more about that later.  For now, it's enough to say that I couldn't be happier to be going home. 

I'm starting this little project to keep my New York friends updated about my life but also to document this transition back South for myself, to remember the events, the love, the family, the recipes, the challenges, the food, and the friends that shaped my long road back home.