Revelations... and no, not like the book in the Bible, just things I have been thinking about.

************Disclaimer************
To all my friends/family in Southern California please do not take anything in this post personally. Do NOT assume that I am ever speaking of you. This is a post about ME and the way I see things and the way they relate to me. I love each and every one of you and am so unbelievably grateful you are in my life. I do NOT want another situation like I had when I wrote the post 'unsolicited advice' in other words... I don't want to piss you people off. Thanks

I am so happy here. Like stupid happy. Like even if something kind of bad happens I am smiling and happy anyway. I have been trying to put my finger on it. Trying to figure out how one state can be that different from the last and change my whole way of thinking and make me feel so incredibly happy. I think I finally got it.

OK, so this is going to sound crazy but today when I was thinking about all of this Chastity Bono jumped in my head... bear with me here... So you know how Chastity Chaz Bono is all "I was totally born in the wrong body, I was meant to be a man" Well today I related to that. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BE A MAN. I do, however relate to the whole 'born wrong' situation. See I was born in Southern California. Born, raised and never exposed to anything else. Every single one of my relatives had been from So. Cal so I was never even exposed to other lifestyles/ways of life. All I knew was the way we did things in So. Cal.

Ever since I was a young girl I have never felt like I fit in. When I was in elementary school my friends were all super athletic and active, while I was super uncoordinated and kind of well.. lazy. In middle school my specific group of friends began rebelling a big and doing things that I wasn't interested in. Not to mention the fact that middle school just basically sucks anyway. Then in High School I found a new group of friends and they were all in student council, cheer, or took all honors classes... oh boy NONE of those were me. I loved these girls, I loved all my friends from elementary school and middle school too. No matter how much I loved them or how much time we spent together I never felt like I 'belonged'.

Fast forward to when I was 22 and moved to the desert. I never, ever felt like I belonged there. It was a whole different world. Especially when I first moved there and it was a total retirement community and everyone I met that was my age was a recovering alcoholic/addict. They were all super nice people and I enjoyed hanging out with them, however we didn't have a ton in common.

It's no secret that the last couple years have been hard for me. I have been nothing but candid and honest when telling about our struggles. Not just financial but also how alone I felt and how hard it was to lose my mom. After my mom died last year I really couldn't get out of the desert fast enough. When I look back now I realize that so many bad things happened to me while I lived in the desert that no matter how many great friends I made that the place was always and forever going to hold sad memories for me. Both my parents died there, my dad's twin brother died there and loads of other family things that I choose not to talk about on here happened while I lived there. It really is just a depressing place for me. As a matter of fact when my mom was dying, during her last couple of weeks we talked about where we were going to bury her. She said she wanted to be buried in the desert, I told her absolutely not. I had no intentions of staying there and I didn't want her somewhere I didn't want to be. Unfortunately hind sight is 20/20 because if I would have know then what I know now I would have gone the creepy route and brought her ashes with me across the country. You know why? Because I have decided that I don't think I ever want to go back to California. I have decided that I was born on the wrong coast. I really, truly should have always been a country girl. Not a horse riding/mud slinging/chicken feeding country girl. But a Carolina girl. I was meant to be here. There is not a doubt in my mind that we have ended up exactly where we belong. I am NOT a California girl. I just happened to be born to two people who lived in California. This kind of hit me yesterday when I was on the phone with my nephew (who is the most amazing 17 year old boy I know, just sayin) and I told him that I was trying to win the lottery so I could buy them all plane tickets to come out to visit and he said "well if you won the lottery you could just come home" and in the beginning I would have said the same thing but now, now I say "I AM HOME". My heart belongs here. My family belongs here. I want my brother and his family to move here too... I think this is where they belong too!

The reason I wrote the disclaimer at the beginning of the post is because I don't want anyone to ever feel like I am bad mouthing California... it's a great place, it really is. Ninety five percent of the people I know and love happen to live there and are very happy there. I just wasn't. Either was my husband. My kids were, but I think that is because that was all they knew. The other night we were with our friends at their pool and when we were leaving we got in the truck and Gianna said "this is it, this is home" she went on to tell us that she had just had the best night in her life, that for the first time she felt like she belonged. She was the happiest I have ever seen her. That? well that right there is what I call stupid happy. Even Allison has said to me "mama, well shoot I think I was just born to be a country girl". She has been planning her wedding... yes you read that correct,  my 15 year old daughter who doesn't even have a boyfriend has been planning her wedding... anyway, the whole thing is going to be a regular old country shin dig. She wants it to be in a barn and she wants to wear cowboy boots. Shoot. Y'all have no idea how happy that makes me (not the planning the wedding part, I mean honestly the kid needs to get a life, who plans their wedding at 15).

I just wanted to share my revelation with y'all and explain why I now have a kinship with Chaz Bono... the good news is, I don't have to have any kind of surgery to make my wrong right, I just had to move to South Carolina.