A Yellow Rose of Texas is none other than my good friend, Jasmine. She is one of the few bloggers that I have met in person. And she is delightful. I mean seriously wonderful. What my dad would have called "good people." She is just as real, honest, and forthright in person as on her blog. Okay, more so. I am one of her biggest fans. Now, I bet you think she lives in Texas. Nope. But she is trying to get there. She says this on her blog, "Sorting through an emotional journey to reach a physical place that more precisely represents that which resides in my soul... I have come to realize that we are not always born in our 'home' and that my uniquely conservative, yet non-traditional viewpoint is best suited in a place called Texas. "I'm going where the sun keeps shinin' through the pourin' rain, going where the weather suits my clothes, bankin' off of the northeast winds, sailin' on summer breeze, and skippin' over the ocean like a stone..."-Harry Nilsson, from Midnight Cowboy"
Cue the traveling music:
Echoes by Jasmine
11/6/13
It echoes in my kitchen. I have gotten rid of so much, that the place literally echoes. I noticed it the other day. It made me think about when we first moved into this house, almost 12 years ago.
I needed this home so much back then. I needed something, anything that really was a home.
We had moved here from a tiny little cinder block rental house and this house was so huge compared to what we had moved from that it echoed in every room.
The house wasn't the only thing that felt empty. My heart was empty.
I had just 'lost' my mother to her mental illness. My sister had just had a baby, that I instantly fell madly in love with, and she had taken him 4 and 1/2 hours away to live with a man that she wasn't legally supposed to be seeing at all.
I so desperately needed something solid, something with a real foundation that I could build upon. That's what this house has been for me.
This house has been the place where my husband and I have both grown into ourselves. We have loved our friends and family so freely here. We have shared this home for more time than either of us have ever come close to being in any other home, in either of our lives.
Now, over the last couple of years, we have been preparing to leave in search of new and different adventures. We are both more sure than ever that it's time to go, to seek out the sun, to find yet another facet of ourselves that we haven't met yet.
And so I have been slowly, but surely, emptying out this house. I have known for a while now that I intend to leave without much baggage. We will leave this place in a very similar state to what it was when we came here. There will be echoes in the empty rooms and my heart will be open and ready for the next big thing.
It isn't easy to make a change, but it can be the best thing we do for ourselves. I hope you join Jasmine in her journey. It is exciting to reach out and embrace life and she certainly is doing that!
