Just a Little Change
How many zip codes have you lived in? I mean total zip codes. As a child, off to college, first job, settled and raising kids, retired? Most people have probably resided in at least two if not more. When I say “most people” I’m also referring to the people I love most in the world but excluding myself. I’ve had the same zip code since the day I was born. My first five years was on the north end of my town and the next 13 was on the south end. I graduated from high school at the age of 17 and my parents took jobs in another town not long after, I didn’t go off to college so I stayed put in the same house I grew up in until my parents sold it. Weird huh? The sell of that house moved me to a friends house back on the north end followed by a short stint in an apartment smack dab in the middle of town. The first home Craig and I purchased at the tender ages of 23 and 24 put us back on the north end where we had two kids and three years later purchased our second home on, you guessed it, the south end, coincidentally on the same street that I lived on during the ages of 5-18. (Y’all dizzy yet?)
To hammer in the fact that I’ve stagnated myself to this town I need to be brutally honest and admit that both of the jobs I’ve held as an adult have also been in the same zip code I live in. The first was at the local bank (the same one my father worked at for 20 plus years and my second is currently at the same school district I attended and where my mother worked during my childhood years. Some of you who have moved around your whole lives probably think this is pretty cool and maybe it is, but I’m starting to feel a little stir crazy? Lost? Anxious? Bored? Idle? I’m not really sure what adjective is needed here but what I know is that it’s time for a change.
Which actually brings me to the next fun little fact about me. I HATE change. I don’t update my phone until it forces me to and I never trade it in for the newest model until the current one quits working. While I love getting a new car I hate learning all the nuances of it and you don’t even want to get me started on computers. A new computer is enough to send me straight to the bottle y’all, I can’t! Change is not exciting for me, it’s stress inducing. The fear of the unknown literally makes me feel like I’m blind and deaf walking alone down a deserted street. (Yes Craig does have to live with a crazy woman, he appreciates y’all’s prayers!)
So here I am a middle aged woman (what the hell y’all!) with two kids off at college and one quickly headed in the same direction and as if that isn’t enough I decide now is the time to change my zip code for the first time in 45 years? But I need this change y’all! I need to start over, I need to be me (whoever that is). I need to know what it’s like to not have anyone have any pre-conceived notions about who I am.
Ask any kid that lives in a small town and 95% of them (that’s probably shooting low) can’t wait to get out. They can’t wait to go off to college and be someone else. Not their parents kid or the kid that screwed up in high school, not the kid that was known as the jock or the nerd, not the overachiever or the slacker, not as the older or younger sibling. Once they leave the safe confines of their small town they get to start over and be whoever they want to be, so I guess I’m saying it’s my turn. I want to graduate and go off to college (but without the studying and the classes and the dorms, ok so not really college but y’all see where I’m going with this). I want to figure out who I am without the ties that I feel have bound me to this town. I’m completely aware this should’ve been done at age 18 but I’ve always been a little late to the party. Don’t get me wrong, I love this town (even with all the changes and growth), it will always be my hometown and will always hold my most favorite memories but I’m ready to start some new ones.
In a few weeks I will have been married to my best friend for 22 years and in a few months I will have been on this planet (and in this zip code) for 45 years; and if all goes according to my plan (praying God and I have the same plan) I have another 50 good years living this crazy life. I’m ready to live those next 50 years with this cute cowboy of mine holding my hand figuring out who I am now and what I want to be when I grow up and to be honest y’all I’m not sure I can do that here. It’s probably the scariest and most exciting thing I’ve ever thought of doing and for once in my life the idea of change thrills me. I’m excited at the thought of it, I hope you’re excited for me too!