The Beginning of the Beginning

I decided to leave New York for many reasons.

Many reasons that aren't too interesting to re-hash. The fact is I left. I left and am now after six years I am returning to my old home.

I never left my Texas pride behind but, I think I felt more pride in the fact that I escaped, that I fled and did something not inside the restrictive walls of the Southern establishment. I still raucously defended Texas and the South and would actively argue with people who said they "were afraid to go down there," but I saw myself as a lucky one. And I suppose I still do. I take much joy in the fact that I lived in big cities without cars for six years, the fact that I lived a way of life completely and utterly alien to anything that I had known before it. I know that I am a better person for it--and I know that it kinda makes me a snob. And, snobbish still, I don't care, because I am so certain in its truth.

So returning feels more than anything like a defeat. A retreat. Being pulled back into the life that I so desperately (and seemingly successfully) cut away from. I never imagined myself coming back. For my sister, it has always been in the back of her mind, in her eventual plan. But for me? No. I said the same thing about Chicago when I was living there—the same thing was true. Perhaps even more bizarre for a I was never quite sure where the exact location of Chicago was until I got accepted into a school there. I have always known where Dallas is.

In August 2003 I left.
In April 2009 I returned.

And now I write about it.