Georgia on My Mind

Other arms reach out to me. Other eyes smile tenderly. Still in peaceful dreams I see, the road leads back to you....Some sweet day when the blossoms fall and all the world's a song, I'll go back to Georgia cause that's where I belong. -- Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, "Georgia on My Mind"

About six years ago, I sat in a dorm room and wondered what would happen after graduation. I'd applied to five grad schools, received nice and less-than-nice rejection letters from four and clung to the single hope that my place on the waiting list of the fifth would give way to an actual spot in the M.F.A. program. And two months later, it did.

I made my way to the Carolina coast and started grad school - and at barely 22, I was about as tender and green and unprepared as I could be. But after about a semester, I had managed to find a few friends and a job. I had cried a lot and felt lonely more. And I wondered if I would ever feel at ease in this town. And two years later, I did.

When I arrived, I never imagined that I would stay so long. That grad school would run its course - rife with good friends, good memories and bad workshops. That my part-time job would turn into a full-time career. That I'd start to think of the big yellow house with the red roof as home. That unexpected relationships would be unexpectedly important.

But in the past year, I've started to tire of the long way home. It's six hours at best - and I've seen a few speeding tickets trying to make it less. I long to be closer to family and to put my roots down in the Georgia red clay. I suddenly noticed how flat it is here and found myself wanting hills. Smelled the salt and wished for pine.

And so I've decided to head back to Georgia. It's long been on my mind to do it, and I finally decided that the longing wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to make it. I'm still getting my plans in order, but suffice it to say, I'll be weathering my last spring in Wilmywood. It's been a difficult decision to make - to pack up and say goodbye after so many years. To leave behind friends who have been my family away from family for so long now.

I won't be going back the same person I was when I left. I depended on my family for everything then - I'd hardly ever stepped out of the nest without someone holding my hand. Now I've grown so independent they hardly know what to do with me. I'm so proud of what I've accomplished while I was here and who I've become. And I will miss Wilmywood and the house on Grace Street and the river and the downtown streets. And more than that I will miss friends and faces and morning coffee across the desk from S. and girls' nights with Pen and Mel and gatherings at the bar with my old grad school comrades and dinners at Circa with Justin. I will miss the part of my heart that I will leave here.

And then I will find out if it's true that you can't ever go home again.