latitude, longitude.

It's hard to write a love story about the south when it's hard to be alive in summertime Louisiana right now, but I'm gonna try.
You know, it's true what they say about not knowing how much you love something until you don't have it anymore. As much as I used to believe I wanted to escape the south growing up, after my first extended venture out of it, I almost kissed the ground when I returned.
I fell in love with it half way across the country and as soon as I hit the Louisiana line, I rolled the windows down as the landscape turned bright green and I swear to you I could smell the sweetness in the air and I knew I was home.
I fell in love with California for sure, but now looking back, I have a hard time deciphering if it was the place or just who I felt like I was there. I was the truest me I think I've ever been. People hung on to my slow southern drawl and complimented my laid back demeanor. I never knew I had southern charm until I became Miss Louisiana to a group of big city Californians. I dispelled the myths and proved the cliches true.
I returned tanned and excited to bring back tales of a different life, but more so excited to dive into southern comforts and embrace the things that made me who I am even though I never would've admitted it before.
Years later as I continue to try to figure out my "plan" and "what's next," I just don't see it mapped out too far away. I absolutely want to continue to explore, I just don't know I want to settle anywhere else anymore. I love the electricity of new places and experiences, but like I said, I think I'm more addicted to the way I feel in those places than the place itself. We've all learned by now that life doesn't change with latitude and longitude, it happens in your soul.
It just seems like the more days that pass the more simple the needs and wants become out of life. You start narrowing in and figuring it out and broadening boundaries at the same time, you know?
However, I can't allow this southern, comfortable life I've built hold me back from those big, risky things I still very much want out of my life.
That's the line I've been straddling for quite some time. Over thinking, not enough leaping. Just because that's the way it was then, it doesn't mean it's the way it'll be now. A big southern life is possible. And let me be clear, I'm not just talking about sweet tea and fried chicken. I'm talking horizons without skylines and suffocating heat and southern gentlemen and days on the lake and stars at night and "y'alls."
Lots of "y'alls."