A lot of good memories are in this country girl's mind when I think back to the good old days. It's nice to take a walk down memory lane sometimes when I'm sitting around my mom's place and watching the sky, or walking around the field. I think back to the days before responsibility, when the biggest decision was figuring out who's house to hang out at on the weekend.
Tonight on the way home I got caught up in a flashback to the parties in the woods, and the bonfires, all the good times (which usually led to some bad decisions), peeling out down the back roads, all the things I loved about the country.
I was so many different people growing up. I always tried to "fit it" with the crowd that I happened to be with in the moment. I got along with most people but I had a handful of good friends and a boatload of acquaintances that I just chilled with.
I was a band geek, a cheerleader, a partier, a nice girl, a bitch, and everything in between. I was always felt like I needed to be somewhere in the middle, never at the head of the group but never at the back. I didn't want the attention, but I didn't want to be left out. Of course who the hell knows what persona I actually put out there.
Most people didn't know what I really did at night or on the weekends. As with most small towns it didn't matter what REALLY happened it only mattered as to what the rumor mill was turning out and there was no point fighting that....it turns no matter what.
The hard part about being from a small country town besides having nothing to do if there were no parties on the weekends was trying to find that middle ground where you could be friends with all your friends and not leave anyone out or feel bad about being yourself.
It's something to this day I have apparently not mastered. I miss those days where I could just sit next to some friends around a bonfire and shoot the shit and there be no bullshit. I don't understand how we have grown up and yet there is still all this small town bullshit.
Why can't friends just be friends? Why are there always these petty little games? I always had more guy friends than girl friends (enter the rumor mill here) because I just don't do petty shit.
As soon as I could I left the small town I grew up in to get away from all the bs and yet it has found me once again. So how do I escape it? Does it ever go away? Doubt it.
Going back home I try as hard as I can not to drive through what I call the smallest town in the land. Sometimes I feel like I had to escape. I needed to spread my wings and reinvent myself. I do miss some of the old me though and when I go home even though it's not far away I feel like I can get some of that part me back.
I think about spending my days with the best people I could ever have hoped to meet, and some of the worst. I think about sneaking out at night to meet up with some friends and hang out. I remember being so bored and waiting to get the hell out of there and then blinking and it was over.
Small town life has it's ups and downs. Looking back I would do a lot of things differently. I'm not sad I left and I'm very happy with where I am now. I wish some of the bullshit didn't follow me or catch up with me but that's everywhere you go. I have some great people in my life and even better I have the memories of the adventures we had. Sometimes in life the memories are just going to have to be enough.
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