Settings: Repeat: One (3/90)

I'm stuck.

 It's evident in my words, in my writing. I've written about the same thing a million times over and I wonder if I'm the only one that has noticed. I keep thinking that if I allow myself to write it, and rewrite it that wherever this is coming from will dry up. I keep thinking there will be a day, a post, where the words will do it justice and I'll be satisfied and move forward with new words, new feelings, a new reality. And when I try to avoid this place, to tip toe around, it I can't write. I've got nothing to say.

This is the same song, sung over and over in a different key.

***
There's a small town goodness that I'm enjoying here. I pretend that I don't, because I have friends in amazing places like  New York City, Atlanta and San Francisco who are doing amazing things while enjoying the city life. They're moving, always moving.

I am here enjoying the simple things. The things I can't find anywhere else.

There is a Ricker's right behind my neighborhood, and if you're anywhere but here I'm not sure you'll know what that is. It's a gas station and convenience store, and home of the "Ricker's Pop". I get an 86- cent diet coke or a dollar coffee from there almost every night. I pass two on my way home, but I've got to go to that one. The people there are sweet, I know their faces and they know mine. They look me in the eye and smile real smiles.

I can always count on dinners out with my Dad being interrupted by someone that knows him. They approach our table and remind him that he was their principle or teacher years ago, and then they linger there as we eat and recall their time in school with him like it was yesterday. It can be an annoyance, but it's one that I missed while I was away.

Everyone here knows who I am, or whose I am. They know that I'm Rosie's granddaughter and Tim's little girl. They love my momma and they stop me to ask how she's doing and make me promise to tell her they said hello. These things guarantee me hugs, kisses and a real smiles from strangers.

***

People look appalled when they learn that I moved from Tampa back to Anderson. That I chose to leave the University of South Florida for Ball State. They look at me with condescending eyes and ask, Why would you do that? That's not a simple question for me to answer, but I can tell them with assurance: Sometimes it doesn't matter where you are. 

The time is coming for me to make my own place in the world, as silly and pretentious as that sounds. I have no idea where I'll go next and I'm not overly worried about where just yet.

It's not the where that matters, it's the move. I've gotten comfortable, and stuck. I came here because I'd gotten comfortable where I was, I'd settled into mediocracy. I stopped thinking big, I became attached to my surroundings. I wrote this "About Me" on my FaceBook Wall just before I moved back here:

2008 marks the beginning of a new start for me. I am stepping outside of my comfort zone and chasing dreams that I have kept locked away for far too long. I'm hoping this journey takes me to unfamiliar places and maybe to familiar ones too. I hope to meet fabulous and even some un-fabulous people because I can learn, grow and be enriched by anyone, yes anyone. I'm finally learning and allowing myself to let go of the old and embrace the new with excitement and anticipation. To all those who have left a mark on my heart, thank you sincerely for your contribution. Even if that mark was a scar, because scars are great reminders of what not to do again. So for me, starting now my regrets will only be things that I have done, and not things that I was to afraid to do. You can always learn from mistakes, but when fear is your master you are nothing more than a coward.

I'm afraid I'll be a nomad for a while. Going here, there and everywhere to assure that I won't get comfortable. I've got to keep dreaming, I've got to keep believing. I've got to be challenged to grow and change, which for me means that I've got to be intimidated and uncomfortable and scared.

I've got to get unstuck.