There's No Place Like Home

Erickson would say that I am experiencing a normal life challenge, give me a reassuring pat on the back and go on his merry way. Yet he is long since dead and thus I am left to wonder how I got to where I'm currently located.

It all hit me quite suddenly at the beginning of last week. I was driving to work one evening and everything was going as usual. As I peeled onto Interstate 75 northbound and squeezed into the far left lane, I glanced up at the sign. I read it everyday, and it really should have no particular effect on me, but for whatever reason it just struck me differently. I blinked as if to clear a blur in my visual field and grabbed one last glimpse on the sign reading Chattanooga. Chattanooga, Tennessee. Have I lost every shread of sanity that I thought I once possessed? I live in the South! Just why exactly I was so dumbfounded I cannot say. This really was no new epiphany for me. I am fully aware of where I reside. But why?

On a more hilarious note, someone else asked me the same question a few days before this occurance. I was at the grocery store to buy a few things to make some dry beef gravy. I searched up and down all the aisles until I was so overcome with frustration that I found a sales associate and asked for some help. She very nonchalantly informed me that dried beef was in a can in the canned meat aisle. What? Why that was proposterous! I had never heard of such a thing. But sure enough, she escorted me down the aisle, and there it sat in all its beauty on the bottom self, in a can. Rather embarrassed, I headed for the check out. The cashier was rather young, some poor soul who was stuck working in food service until she graduated high school.
As I pulled my wallet out of my purse to pay she complimented me on the wallet itself. I kindly thanked her and then replied to her question of where I purchased it. I proceeded to tell her that I am not from here and that it was something that I got as a gift that was bought in Philadelphia, which is where I am from. She then leaned forward and whispered in a rather shocked manner, "What are you doing here?" I then told her that I went to school here at one time, which promted her to ask if I liked it here to which I said yes. Of course there are some things that you just will always miss, like the fact that our dried beef comes in a package and not a can. But to each his own. She still seemed a bit taken back that I was still living here or that I considered to come here at all from what she considered to be such an aewsome place. Of course I had to pop my collar as I left the store because I was filled with such pride to be able to say that I am from Philadelphia, but I digress.

Point being is that I am not so sure that I fit in here. I am not sure why I am here and if this is where I belong. I know that I have settled into a job and an apartment, but does that really mean that this is where I am supposed to be. Of course it does not help that Mom keeps trying to tell me that I need to come home and "This is where you belong. . . . . ."

Sigh. . . .I just don't know anymore, and quite frankly I'm too tired to try to figure it all out. Maybe you can help me. . . . .