Love letter to my undisclosed hometown;-)

Dearest secret place,

I love you. And I really wish I could say your name because I rather like it. But then Mom would worry about stalkers and such, so you must maintain a secret identity. (love you mom:-))

Wow, how to sum up ten years of life in a little town in a single letter? You can't really. I remember one day riding to church on a summer morning in the passenger seat with the windows down. I leaned out and took in a deep lungful of Georgia air, truly savoring it's taste. And then I sat back in the car and felt my heart swelling within my chest as I realized I really truly loved this place. I loved the trees and the cool breezes and all the green and the way it smelled. It was my home.

I wish I had explored you more fully earlier. I think I was under the impression that you were too tiny and lame to have anything worth exploring, but then I found the farmer's market and the food trucks (yum) and the antique shop (oh the antique shop!) and I'm wishing I'd spent more time walking the park trails and sipping on glass bottles of coke (i really love those). But alas.

Thanks for the summer storms and the crossfit in old town and the elementary school right next to the high school. Thanks for the playground with the swings and and the scarecrow outside that old lady's house. Thanks for the touch screens at the library that let me type in my library card number from memory. Thanks for type to learn in third grade and the track behind the school that I walked with Mrs. Norwood everyday in fourth grade. Thanks for the closet upstairs in Grandma's house that was a refuge to tortured cousins and that is still used as a secret hide out to this day (even if it does keep shrinking and we are awfully cramped). Thanks for the Bruster's that Papa could never say no to. Thanks for all the orange paw prints painted on the white walls and that endless staircase that led to the lower field of the middle school. Thanks for the random snow days and the abundance of pools in the summer. Thanks for the church on the corner and for the people that meet there each week.

Thanks for the cousins a few miles down the road and best friends from fourth grade. Thanks for letting an 8 year old girl who cried about moving make friends and finally recognize neighborhoods popping out of the sea of trees.

Thanks for a teenagehood.

Sincerely, mad