small town angst

I think I've already mentioned that the high school Perry will be teaching at starting this August is the same one that we both went to as teenagers. The town has grown a bit since I lived there. I think the population finally hit over 3,000 last year. It was much smaller when I lived there. It was a one stoplight town. Now I think there are four.


We were driving to aforementioned small town last week so Perry could fill out some job type paperwork when I laughed and told him that my number one goal my senior year of high school was to blow our small town after graduation and never look back. And now look at us: I drive up there at least once a week to see my family, and he will be working there.

Actually, I was so sure that I would never go back to that town, that I took pictures during my final weeks in high school so I would have something to remember the place by.

Yeah, what a terrible place to grow up. So, I was an angsty teenager; that's nothing extraordinary. Looking back now, I know it wasn't really the town that was so terrible, I just had that gnawing, anxious feeling of wanting to be independent and begin my "adult" life, and starting fresh in a different place with different people seemed like the best way to do it.

I actually moved around a bit in Texas during my college years and I did enjoy the feeling of transferring jobs (four times) or moving (six times) or starting at a different school (three times). That feeling of beginning somewhere new with a clean slate and leaving anything old and bad behind was refreshing. It wasn't that long ago, but it kind of amazes me that I felt that way since I've always thought of myself as a very cautious person who is a bit afraid of change.