Homesick

I miss Texas.

Hawaii is beautiful but it's not home, it's not Texas. Right now vivid bluebonnets have sprouted over fields and on the sides of the highways during the grass into a beautiful sea of bright blue flowers. When I was a kid, my dad would take us out to take pictures in bluebonnets and I did it with the girls. It was a Texas tradition. And I miss it this year. I missed them last year too but moving to Hawaii was still so new at that point I didn't think as much of it. This year, however, I miss everything.

I miss Austin.

I love Texas in general and should it decide to secede from the Union I would have a hard time not returning and publicly declaring myself a citizen of the Republic of Texas. But Austin, Austin is the heart for me. It is weird, Austin is Weird. And proud of their Weirdness. So much so, they embrace it and live by the motto of "Keep Austin Weird". What makes Austin weird exactly? Leslie - the cross-dressing mayoral candidate - for one. Austin is an artistic, indie haven for culture and free-thinking. It's full of art, music, literature and history. While it continues to expand and sadly loses some of that, it is still home for me. It's a small bastion of liberalism against a great state of conservatives.

And my friends are there.

Mind you I have friends here - well I have one friend here at least - but most of my friends are in Austin or in Texas somewhere. I miss my friends. I miss hanging out with them and rolling dice to create characters for a game we'll play once if that. I miss watching Jeff go into the purple zone and laugh at everything regardless of how funny or may not be.

And I miss my family.

Pretty much everyone is somewhere in Texas. We used to meet to have lunch with Dad in Giddings once a month. It was just a couple hours on a Sunday but it was nice to see him regularly. I miss seeing my mom, even though she came with her own annoyances. No matter how much her actions or words might annoy me, I know how much she loves us all. And I think we reached a new level of our relationship shortly before we moved here.

So I miss home. I'm thrilled to get a chance to see places that aren't Texas but there's a small part of me that aches for home I think. And Texas is home to me. Growing up, I couldn't wait to leave Texas. I wanted to move to California and do, I have no idea what exactly, but I wanted to move to California. I had no desire to stay in Texas then. I applied to the University of Texas because my parents encouraged it. As chance would have it, I ended up at UT and met Robby and Jeff and Mary and all my dear friends. I fell in love with Robby and Austin and Texas and now it's home.

I'm feeling rather nostalgic tonight and thinking of friends and family that I haven't seen in awhile. Thus the somewhat depressing ramblings about my homesickness.