When Will I Feel I'm Home

I'm an alien in a strange land. This is not where I belong. I'm on a journey to my home; every day I make a step closer to that rest, that promise.

My extended family on my mother's side has been here for seven or so generations. Yet I don't feel this country is truly our home. If I saw on the news that a bill had been passed and that our family had to pack up and go because of whatever loophole the government or whoever made up, I wouldn't be surprised.

I bet we'd go, too. And without a fight. This doesn't feel like our home. We're tolerated here. Allowed. Not welcomed, not accepted. How can this be our home? When can we go home?

Forgiving without Forgetting

I'm called to not only forgive, but to intercede for those who have wronged me. They are people, worthy of eternity. This is so easy to forget.

However, their past deeds do not fade from my mind. These things leave scars that never heal. I'm left with the seams that I trail my thoughts over, hating the feel but unable to help the obsession. How do I get past it? I'm stuck here in this circular pattern. I want out of this trap.

I am a network of ridges, dimples, and scabs. Infections lay underneath, waiting to boil up and fester. Is this the result of forgiveness or un-forgiveness? I think I'm asking the wrong questions. It's the outcome of unmended relationships that have trickled down to every arena of my life. I absolved my betrayers' responsibilities, while believing that I must take them over. No.

I must let them go. I cannot carry them for they are too heavy and too painful to hold. The scars are unsurprising.

Yet even as I move on from the hurts, the memory of them follows. Can I outrun them? No, that would be an unnecessary effort. I am to use them, empower myself. They are evidence of bestowed strength, and I would be foolish to escape that.

I must never forget that, although at times my focus skews inward and I wallow in my pain because I am thinking small. The meanness of my perceptions pushes out everyone who stands beside me until I convince myself that I am alone. My vision then grows smaller and smaller until I can no longer see. I've blinded myself.

Now when I try to open my eyes, I am still in the dark. Even if light comes near, I turn away. It hurts my eyes. But the deepness of my void scares me, and I begin searching for that light. It's a futile exercise with sightless eyes.

I want out so I finally decide to find help. By this point I'm broken and ashamed--all because someone wronged me. I'm led back into the world and startled to find people waiting for me. But I forget that I'm not helped yet. I'm still holding onto something, my hands spasming.

Somewhere down the road I get used to keeping my hands closed. But I slam against a wall and to protect myself I open my hands. I drop those debts that don't belong to me, still unpaid. Then, I ask for them to be taken away. The burden that lifts amazes me.

What do I do know? I move on and use those ghosts that don't quite recede to build myself up and to keep my eyes open for those who are in the same position I once was. But what about the betrayer in my life. I forgave, but do I have a right to demand change?

That I don't know.

The Hardest Thing

My husband finally announced the official date that he is leaving for San Jose, California - November 30. Ah, November 30. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

I'll have to admit that my apprehension is warring with my excitement. I have lived in Mississippi for about 27 years now, and this is the only home I have known. I find it hard to come up with reasons to like Mississippi, but I still find excuses to stay. We have small children. We don't have jobs lined up in California. Moving all of our accumulated junk will be expensive. I have no family that lives close to San Jose. The beat goes on.

One Thousand Disappointments Part 1

Mississippi. The state of "last place in everything good" and "first place in everything bad." Or so I seem to always hear or read. This place where I was born is home to soft, lonely fields and grungy projects. The place that has legacies in southern rituals and bitter prejudices.

Clearly, I have a love/hate relationship for my birthplace. And, apparently, the relationship runs both ways. I feel beaten, trodden upon, abandoned, and abused. Why do you treat me so cold? But, of course, there is also the love. The pride in being a southerner and in knowing intimately the culture of the south. In knowing just about everyone on my street, in my neighborhood, and in my community. The warmth of giving a smile and a wave to every person that you see, whether you know that person or not.

California or Bust

Right now, we're leaning more towards "bust." How will a family with two small children move to an incredibly expensive city (live in Mississippi for a while and everywhere and everything will seem "incredibly expensive") with no money, with only a glimmer of a job, and with no place to stay (as of yet)? Magic, of course.

We save up money. However, circumstances happen. The car breaks down. Gas prices rise. One of us loses a job.