From Her Cowboy Boots to Her Down Home Roots

I could make a list a mile long of the differences between North Carolina and Maine, from the scenery, to the weather, to the attitude. I could compare the land elevation and the gas prices. I could compare the humidity and the population. But the one difference that really matters to me is that one of them is home, and one of them is just simply not. One gives me the feeling of comfort and welcome, and one doesn't. It's that feeling both in the pit of my stomach, and the center of my heart that realy matters. It's old back roads that I know like the back of my hand. It's fields and trails that have watched me grow up. It's memories that stir up when I turn the bend in the road, or walk into an old gas station that still has the same cashier for as long as I can remember. I sometimes wonder if the trees could talk, what they would have to say about us. I imagine all that they have seen over the years. Friendships, break-ups, make-ups, fights, and laughter so hard and long that tears pour down. They've seen the progress I've made along with all the times I was knocked hard back on my ass. There's an old bridge down towards the end of Bean Street. That little pond saw my old step-dad take me fishing down there with my first tweety-bird pole. About fifteen minutes up the road from that pond is a private beach that has seen the tears I cried when he walked out, 10 years later. That very same beach has seen me sneak off to meet an old boyfriend, who stole my heart when I was sixteen. There's an empty field, that witnessed the giddy screams and laughter I had with my old bestfriend who introduced me to that boy racing through on her fourwheeler.  There's an old apartment that had the pleasure of seeing the first sip of beer I ever had. There were a lot of firsts in the heart of that town. My first steps to my first kiss to my first heart-break. And when I go back to that town, and those places, even the air smells different. It's familiar, and comforting. It has a sweetness that sparks back to these memories, and that innocence. And I miss it.