Where are you from?

This is one of the questions I get when I first meet someone. Living in the south I do not have the beautiful southern accent, so it’s obvious that I’m not originally from here.

This question always makes me pause…

Well,…I mainly grew up in Southern California – I’m a Navy brat…I was born in North Carolina and that’s about as long as I lived there. I’ve lived in several places until my Dad retired to South Carolina. 

I was a teen when we moved South

I remember being teased about how I said certain words like ten and pen…but, after a while the newness wore off as everyone got to know me and I became part of my ‘group’ – school class. I graduated from a Christian school – the fourth class to graduate with eighteen graduates. 

Then I went to college…

in Georgia. Blending there was fine, because there were people from all over! This too was a very small Christian college…an close-knit surrounding. 

Then after three years I decided upon a change….

This small, Christian college offered basically two career courses (beside the MRS degree) for women – teaching or secretarial. Neither seemed to be my ‘calling’ at the time. So, I achieved an Assosiate Degree and moved to establish my residency in Georgia to continue my education….I also needed a job.

I began work in Customer Service…

with a national company and was doing quite well until one day I heard this laugh…I asked my supervisor who that was? She told me his name and the next thing I knew she’d invited myself and this joyful person out to dinner. That’s how I met Dearest. We discovered we had similar interests and began to ‘talk’. 

Honestly, I was smitten from the beginning.

It took Dearest a little longer to realize he was in love with me too. I was quite patient. After a quick courtship, so to speak, we married and I have been living in and out of the south ever since. 

Now we live in Dearest’s hometown.

I tease him, because since we’ve lived here, the ‘country boy’ in him has definitely come out. I so love it that now I feel that I’m a ‘country girl’. 

I still don’t have a southern accent…

somehow I just never picked it up, my siblings certainly have! I still get the question from time to time, ‘where are you from’. Having lived the majority of my 50 years in the south, I believe I can confidently with slight hesitation reply, ‘I’m from the south’. 

Regardless of whether I sound like I am or not

Life gives us twists and turns at times. It takes us along paths that might surprise us. A move to the south; joining a wonderful church; going to a small college in a different state; stepping out on my own to get a job only to meet my one true love…life is surprising, life is fun and definitely, life is beautiful. 

 

I am refreshing this post – I still get this question! First published May 2014.