🌼Field Notes from the Wild and the Holy🌼
I highly recommend watching the video for this post, located at the end.
Also, I apologize for the “bad writing,” but I took the text from an unscripted audio file and didn’t want to change it too much from the original.
One thing I remember so well about myself as a teenager was how badly I wanted to leave home. I hated everything. I didn’t even know why—I just did. I hated where I lived. I was resentful of being made fun of for my southern accent. I don’t think it’s as strong now as it was then, but back then it made me feel small. People often assume that having a southern accent means you’re less intelligent.
Spoiler alert: they were wrong!
It wasn’t just that, though. It was rebellion.
I wanted to be anywhere but home, anywhere but where I was born and raised, where my family loved me deeply. I wanted to go where I could make my own rules, where I could be anyone I wanted to be. I thought the world would give me more than home ever could.
I used to say I grew up poor, and in a material sense, I did. We lived in trailer parks, wore off-brand clothes, and got by on very little. But the truth is that I believed I was poor, and that belief helped define me. In a negative way.
I wanted better.
I wanted more.
I wanted to make something of myself.
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