My Alabama Farm

I grew up on a small farm in Alabama. That's not true, actually. I just couldn't figure out how to start this, so I made something up.

I titled this right away, which I don't normally do. I usually just start writing and then come up with a clever title to fit whatever randomness I had tossed together and called a blog (like "Chronic Eye Twitch"... that was one of my better ones).

But I knew right away what I wanted to write about. I know exactly what to write about and what to title it, but I can't figure out how to say it. How do you write about life when it's good? When you find yourself sitting in contentment, gazing out the window at all the people rushing by, sipping coffee and listening to a melody that seems to sing the exact tune that is playing in my heart. How do you say that sometimes life is just good? I guess I just did.

But how do you talk about life being good when there are those living lives that feel anything but good? I don't have a formula to hand out; here, do this and that and watch life become good. I've tried every formula there is; they don't work.

One could argue that life is what you make it, and to a very limited degree, I'd agree with that. But what woman asked for her husband to walk away? What child decided that his father would leave and never come back? What daughter would ask her mother to be absent in the darkest hours? Life, it seems, deals itself out to you sometimes. It's not always what you make it.

My life has dealt out many unwanted twists and turns, and I'd like to say that I'm thankful for all of them because they've made me a better person. But really, I'm not that good. I didn't ask for the bad times any more than I created the good times.

I didn't ask for my dad to be completely absent my whole life or for my mom to crush every dream I've ever had. I didn't ask to be uprooted from my home and moved to LA in high school. I didn't ask my fiance to lie to me, showboat with every girl but me and then laugh in my face as I walked away. I didn't ask to live in a shack and eat one bag of chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I never asked for any of it.

Sometimes I fought back. Sometimes I held my head high and walked across the battlefield with dignity. And sometimes I crawled. Sometimes I ran right back to the hand that held me down, crumbled under adversity and laid helpless. It's not a struggle that I rose out of victorious. It's life and I have lived it one day at a time, just like everyone else.

And so I find myself asking, "How did I get here?" How did I end up in a place where I feel loved, intrigued by life itself, excited about what the day may hold? I don't know. But today, and maybe just for today, I can say that sometimes, life is just good.