Small Town America

Small Town America - I got an overwhelmingly large dose of it this past weekend while visiting the middle of Kentucky to do a travel writing piece. While my piece will praise all of the really wonderful things about small town life (and I think there are a lot of them), I spent the weekend thinking a lot more about my next step in life and how I am not really psyched about where I am currently.

Chattanooga is not small town America in quite the same way that Lebanon, KY is (where I spent a lot of the weekend). However, as I walked down the street and listened to our tour guides talk to almost everyone we passed, I couldn't help but think that if I stay in Chattanooga, that would be me in 10 years. Even now, I rarely go to a restaurant where I don't see someone I know, and I haven't lived in this city for 6 years!

As I got in the car to drive back to Chattanooga, I got incredibly overwhelmed about coming back to Chattanooga. It is hard for me to admit that I don't actually belong here now. Chattanooga has always been this place in my mind that I could come back to whenever I wanted to. I think I have always actually believed that I would end up here long term. So to come back and feel so uncomfortable here is shocking. I have spent the last month NOT thinking about where I was and just trying to accept that there are a lot of great things about this place (which there are). But, I don't think it is where I want to be in the next little while, which makes it difficult to even enjoy the next bit of time of being here.

It has been wonderful to hang out with my parents, to get to see them more regularly, and to let them take care of me some. But I am not really interested in building a life here, which is very unusual for me, and I think is indicative that I am not ready to be in Chattanooga.

I can't decide if I feel this way about all places that I live or not, but I feel particularly anxious to move on and be somewhere that I think I could be for a while. I do know that I get impatient at the idea of being here for 10 more weeks (which is about how long I am supposed to stay here, at this point). How do i just enjoy where I am, even as I plan for something different?