I have felt like the outsider for sometime now and I finally put my finger on why. Moving to a new area is always new, exciting, lonely, traumatizing, invigorating and you want to give up a million times. I've always known this, I have always excelled and generally quickly. What has changed? One, I'm older, as you get used to your ways, you, well, get used to your ways. Like How I Met Your Mother, when they contemplated moving to New Jersey, and the guy my sister loves says New Jersey sucks, I have all my guys in NY. My suit guy, my drink guy, my guy, I know where to go for whatever I want or there's someone to call to get it. I feel the same way, I had my go-to friends, my go-to man, my plans, my travel buddies, my fav airport, my seafood guy, my place for sweets and specialities, my grocery store in walking distance, my bar, my bartender, my Thursday nights out, my gym class, I had it all. Now I am girl-in-transition. This is bad enough but then I noticed another peculiar Charlotte only trend.
Now Charlotte is known as a transport city everyone says no, one is really from Charlotte (actually i've met quite a few) but I've noticed for example, my next door neighbor. Not to tell her business, but a single mother, every week, or sometimes days all her family comes to her house i mean like 5 cars worth. It takes a village to raise a child, I think she has one. I'm suspicious to think that they revolved around each families house choosing another house to congregate at each weekend. I also know most of my friends, live with or near family members, not just one they dragged down here because they hadn't lived together in 10 years and Older sister wondered how younger sister even acted as an adult person (oh...too much into my life...i digress). People have best friends from college (that they take seriously! like best friend is the title) cousins, cousins' friends, aunts, and uncles. If one person is successful and gets a house, no room goes unclaimed, everybody has a place they can stay. This is some Africa, one community, and it has such great potential that I am almost in awe of it. It is amazing like the Harlem days, when everybody could be seen at one point of another, because one family member's success almost guaranteed that they would be bringing up the next one for success. I've gone to so many houses where cousins and cousins and aunts live together, five best friends and a brother live together, the possibilities are endless. Just one problem. I have no family here, not that my family believes that or lives that way. Most of us live in different states can't come by after church, but do come down regularly to visit my grandma's house. We just don't all go at the same time. Are we as close? Would that exist? I don't know. I don't know if I would. The we-focused part of me shouts isn't this what we are always fighting for? But the city me, turns up my nose at the countriness that is a whole fam living together. the fight for nuclear families clearly winning, the thought of living in a tiny place alone, happy about the location not necessarily the space, the colors, the designs.
My city side and my country side fight, and the city side wins a lot, something I never expected, but I guess the city side is a bit tougher. I struggle everyday with not becoming used to this world, remembering all that I love about my other world. Wondering if this could be me...
Now Charlotte is known as a transport city everyone says no, one is really from Charlotte (actually i've met quite a few) but I've noticed for example, my next door neighbor. Not to tell her business, but a single mother, every week, or sometimes days all her family comes to her house i mean like 5 cars worth. It takes a village to raise a child, I think she has one. I'm suspicious to think that they revolved around each families house choosing another house to congregate at each weekend. I also know most of my friends, live with or near family members, not just one they dragged down here because they hadn't lived together in 10 years and Older sister wondered how younger sister even acted as an adult person (oh...too much into my life...i digress). People have best friends from college (that they take seriously! like best friend is the title) cousins, cousins' friends, aunts, and uncles. If one person is successful and gets a house, no room goes unclaimed, everybody has a place they can stay. This is some Africa, one community, and it has such great potential that I am almost in awe of it. It is amazing like the Harlem days, when everybody could be seen at one point of another, because one family member's success almost guaranteed that they would be bringing up the next one for success. I've gone to so many houses where cousins and cousins and aunts live together, five best friends and a brother live together, the possibilities are endless. Just one problem. I have no family here, not that my family believes that or lives that way. Most of us live in different states can't come by after church, but do come down regularly to visit my grandma's house. We just don't all go at the same time. Are we as close? Would that exist? I don't know. I don't know if I would. The we-focused part of me shouts isn't this what we are always fighting for? But the city me, turns up my nose at the countriness that is a whole fam living together. the fight for nuclear families clearly winning, the thought of living in a tiny place alone, happy about the location not necessarily the space, the colors, the designs.
My city side and my country side fight, and the city side wins a lot, something I never expected, but I guess the city side is a bit tougher. I struggle everyday with not becoming used to this world, remembering all that I love about my other world. Wondering if this could be me...
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