Life is good…Paula says so

They say: “Once a Texan, always a Texan.”

Being born a Texan, I have been faced with this idea my entire life; however, I have been fighting it off ever since returning there from living away for several years, only to find that the people I was then surrounded by were superficial. Granted, it was high school, in which case, probably no matter where you are, it's pretty messed up :) ...

The busy highways, and the big fake boobs, and the teased hair, and the need for acceptance at any and all costs , along with the ‘two faces’ I’d been faced with at that time in my life, generated a genuine disgust for the Lone Star State. However, I can now block that stuff out, because I have been away from it for so long, it seems. Forgive and forget, right?

Well, at least forget; I’m good at that part.

Tonight, I sit, in a small yet dynamitic country in Asia…so far from Texas, and so far from anything once familiar to me. And this very night, Texas Country rings in my ears, and I realize that it’s true: “Once a Texan, always a Texan.” I think that I have a love for this music that most people can only sense from having been rooted in it.

If I could be anywhere right now, I would be at BillyBob’s Texas and I would be two-stepping with Rodney, just like we did the first night we hung out “as adults;” two grown people experiencing the excitement of a new attraction.

I look out my 4-story window at a factory across the alley of this busy city, and I see two Korean “kids” ( I say “kids” ‘cause they appear to be younger than I am), taking a break from life, from the high demands of Korean society workforce, indulging in an innocent game of Ping Pong.

So, I guess, if I can’t be at BillyBob’s right now, I’d want to be in on that match.

But, I’m here… in a hotel, sitting in a room, that so conveniently serves as my apartment for one year’s time. I’m not playing Ping Pong across the alley with Koreans, and I’m certainly not two-stepping at BillyBob’s with the love of my life, but by golly, I have experienced both of these, and I have had the luxury of experiencing so much more than just that.

I’m content.

Aneo. Content-aye-oh.