location affection

I was born in california, but moved away when I was three. We lived in Oxford for three years also before moving here. I have lived in texas for about eleven years now. Eleven years. For that amount of time I have held england up on a pedestal as the fairy-tale location of my childhood. Enchanting, beautiful, rainy, magical. It had it's faults as far as kid drama goes, but it was nothing compared to the awful experiences I had with kids once I moved here. Ever since moving here, one of the only things I've wanted for my future is to move back to england. I can't think of a time when I didn't want to move back.

I miss the perpetually grey skies and the rolling green fields and the crumbling castles set up on hillsides and the sheep and the cottages with flowered window sills and the buildings that date back through history and the bed-and-breakfasts and the culture and the rest of europe being a ferry ride away. That's what I've wanted for years, and I still want that. But...I've been actively shunning texas for so long that I didn't really realize when the little things slipped through the cracks. Now don't get me wrong, I still strongly dislike arlington, texas and everything about middle america suburbia that it represents, but I've developed an affection for it. An affection like the kind for someone you don't particularly like but spend a lot of time around and grow to be alright with over time.

And I still want to leave, but I'm coming to admit that I'll miss a few things. Weird things, and not many, but they're there. I'll miss these tall pine trees and the oaks and pecans. However much I complain about it and love the cold, I'll miss the ridiculously hot summers where you can just lie in the sun and the sky goes on and on and on. I'll miss the kindness of people to strangers (aside from the obvious things I dislike about lingering racism in generally old and conservative people). I think I'll miss it all in the way you miss an old pair of shoes that don't fit anymore but you remember all the places you went, be them good or bad.

My problem is that I can't let things go. Everything has sentimental value and every moment I'm just thinking that someday, somehow, I'll miss wherever I am now. I don't know how to live any other way. I don't know how to let things go. It's inevitable that you'll miss things. I just hope I can find a way to know which things to hang on to and which to let fall away with time.