Dear Texas,
We do not have the healthiest relationship, but that does not mean there is no love between us. I left you for the first time this time last year, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. You are too hot in the summer and not cold enough in the winter, if you drive down one road for a decent amount of time in any direction you will see city, farm, and desert. There are more fast food joints and baptist churches than houses here, you gave me my family and you raised me as best you could. You're very opinionated Texas, and on a level you aren't very welcoming to people like me, you are debatably the heart of the south and with that comes southern views and feelings. Did I choose to live here? No. Do I wish I was born somewhere else? Not in a million years. You are one the most interesting things about me. You gave me my open mind, sometimes you felt like the whole world, but I found that you're big but not that big, the world is more than just you and you made me feel guilty for realizing that. Leaving home was hard but you made it easy. As easy as you bred me you bred hate that chased me out of your borders. People, places, ideas, hovered above me like vultures, and you taught me to know a buzzard when I see one.
The family you gave me fell apart there at the end too, and it all began to be too much so I ran. I convinced myself I was running towards something new but I was running away from something toxic. I tried my hardest to forget you but I missed you like crazy, you're familiar, my soul was built here in this suburb and I can't separate my body from that truth. All I focused on was the fact that my life was at its worst when I was with you, that I forgot that it was once the best with you. I ran from my problems but you were there when I came down from my little cloud to tell me that no matter how far I go over the rainbow, the yellow brick road comes to an end. This summer my old life hit me like a freight train and I need to come to terms with it rather than running from it.
Im writing this to say that I forgive you. While I was here I was depressed, I was lost, I came into myself, and that was all so hard. I watched my family, those I used to hold closer than anything, implode and devolve into something I don't recognize, there was a time that your followers made me feel unworthy of life and unworthy of the heaven I was supposed to believe in, and that was excruciating, but I forgive you.
Im leaving you again, but Im leaving you with a free conscience, and with an open heart. When I come back I will welcome you again. Goodbye for now Texas.
