Re-Tex-Patriated

Nothing makes you appreciate a place like leaving it.

Except maybe going back.

This Texas Ex-Patriot returned to the Republic for an all-too-brief visit over the holidays. It was 6 days that included 3 cities, a decent amount of Christmas shopping, and as many friends as could be squeezed in (sadly, only a fraction of those on the original list to see).

After returning to my former workplace for general comraderie and a sense of home, Shelley and I made our rounds including a gathering of close buddies, meeting new inclusions in the friend-sphere, learning about a certain engagement, and finally a nostalgic stroll along the San Antonio Riverwalk on a foggy weekday morning.

We actually went to Austin with another long list of contacts to make, but opted instead for a very chill stay-in / housewarming with a few close friends.

What's killing me are the trade-offs. For every friend we did see, we essentially had to give up the chance to see another. Going to one cherished favorite restaurant meant there would be another San Antonio-only culinary experience we would miss out on.

In much the same way, I had to revisit, for no practical reasons, the choice I made to leave San Antonio. In doing so, I left a lot of good friends, a job that I can only describe as excellent-but-frustrating, and the first home I had that I didn't want to leave. No offense to my parents, as all teenagers I was ready to fly the coop when that time came, but for reasons which have nothing to do with my parents, and are not intended to be offensive to anyone still residing there, I have simply zero desire to ever again permanently reside in my native Oklahoma.

But not so with Texas. I'm not racing back; in fact I'm quite curious about what life would / will be like in many different cities, states, countries? But I now know that Texas, and San Antonio in particular, is a good place, for me at least. And that makes every choice I make to go or to stay somewhere else all the more difficult.

Maybe there is somewhere else I would like even more than San Antonio, but there are certainly many places I will like less (New York being one of them over a long enough time span), so it's hard to justify not just going back. Is that defeat, or just knowing what I want? Probably could be either, though that doesn't help me make any decisions.

Now I'm just mumbling. Sorting it all out. I've only been gone a short time, but I already miss my Texas life, my Texas friends, in short not "Texas" but rather the world of "myTexas" in which I lived for 8 years. That's a home that is not easy to rebuild, and hard to do without when your life plan doesn't currently allow for permanence to any serious degree.

Many of my friends are now at the point in their lives when houses and mortgages start kicking in. Well, more power to you. I can't even figure out where to set down my luggage, much less lay a foundation. Perhaps I'll just take it like the early settlers of the American West, and keep moving until I find something that's mine, or until my wagon wheel breaks. Of course, following that analogy, I'll end up back in Oklahoma. That is the only reason people stayed there, right?

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::(lame) Texpatriot