Awake My Soul

I have long been out of the world of blogging. Twitter and Facebook have simultaneously replaced the world of meaningful (and often lengthy) xanga-style posts with 140 characters or less. And for me, this has been sufficient, until now.

My birthday was a few weeks ago. Not a milestone birthday, necessarily, but an age change nonetheless. I turned 26 this past January, and I did not handle it well. You see, when I turned 25 they told me, "this is the year of reflection, a time for you to look back on your young life and examine and appreciate everything in it. Treasure it, love it, re-experience every moment of what has brought you to the place you are now." But when I turned 26 they said, "Now, get over it."

Seriously? Get over it? That's really all you have to say? It's as if someone was pushing me out of my young 20's and into the scary, dark, older 20's (against my very will, mind you). It was not pleasant and I cried  couple of times...and I mean I ugly cried.

The problem is that I was not done reflecting. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to keep reflecting and examining so long as it kept me from facing an ugly truth; my life did not turn out the way I had planned. Nothing I had planned for in my early 20's had come true. The all-fulfilling life calling, the self-assurance that came with being undoubtedly in God's will, the husband (or at least the man who would surly at this time be, irrefutably, the one); my life, essentially, was a sham.

But, really, it wasn't. I have since then gotten over the initial shock of turning an upper even twenty number, and I am now discovering that, though I don't have what I thought I should have by now, nor do I really know what the rather dark, foggy future holds, I am, in this time and place, right where I want to be.

Where. I. Want. To. Be.

Let me fill you in on what I mean by this. Almost two years ago I made an extremely scary, somewhat irrational decision to move to a foreign place I now like to call home. This place is Mississippi, and I now consider this the best decision of my life. Many over the past two years have asked me why I might move to such a place, and for a period of time, I could not give them a very good reason. And the problem is not that Mississippi has nothing to offer, it is that not many understand what it really means to live in this often overlooked place.

It's here that I am going to introduce you all to an author who has become incredibly famous over the past year or so, and all because of a book she wrote about a time and place in Mississippi. Her name is Katheryn Stockett, and her book, "The Help," has been made into a movie that has been nominated for an Oscar or two (congrats to Octavia Spencer for winning); you all know this. At the end of her book, though, she writes a few cool things about her state of birth. It really is a rather funny portion of the book, and I would read the whole thing for yourself if I were you, but I find this next quote particularly interesting.

"Mississippi is like my mother, I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person that raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother, too."


I really can't say why exactly, but this quote still makes me smile. And though I don't yet believe I can call Mississippi my mother, I do think I can at least call  her my great aunt in that I  have always been invited to call her home my home as well. She didn't give birth to me, but has provided me a place to give birth to my own ideas and dreams. Her skies are large enough for another dreamer and her pines still compete to see who can touch the meridian Sun. It's a beautiful place that I have found to rest my soul.


So what is it about this place? I first became familiar with the state when I was in elementary school. It was well known among all the kids that Mississippi was the longest word in the dictionary and your ability to spell it correctly and as fast as you could awarded you some kind of gold star in the ever developing social scene that is first grade. This is not a difficult feat and we soon learned that, in fact, supercalafragilisticexpialadocious was the longest word in the dictionary. Since then Mississippi has come and gone in my life as more of an idea; it was a far-away destination, a setting in a book, a place to stop for gas. 


But now it has become so much more. 


Now for a little exercise that I hope will help you understand where I'm coming from. I'm sure you are all familiar with memes.


This is my Mississippi meme:

Where my mom thinks I live:

Where Society thinks I live:

Where my friends think I live:

Where I live:

It's the people that have always meant the most to me, and these are a few of my favorite. If you didn't get your picture in this lineup, don't worry, I'm just not good at taking pictures =). If you want your picture here, just send me a link and I'll post it, because, more than likely, you mean a lot to me and have helped shape my experience here in Mississippi.

Thanks.

No, really, that's all, for now.