Atlanta.

Well, after all the years, all the countless blog posts, all the anticipation, the worry -
The unkown is here, and it's not what I expected in the least.

It's better.

Atlanta is different. It was going to be, and I knew it from the moment that I pulled onto my new street at my new home, as "my sweet summer" by the Dirty Heads played and I pushed my sunglasses back to get a better look.
The pace of the city: faster. No more slow, sickly sweet southern moseying to be found here. The good old southern boys are gone, no place for huge trucks in a city that makes my small nissan versa feel too big on its narrow streets.
Things are open all the time.  Coffee shops don't have summer hours. The city doesn't sleep. The graffiti rivals museum art on some building walls.

This city captivates and perplexes me. It enveloped me, like a dream embraces the sleeping mind - wholly and completely,  with no memory of how it did so in the first place. It just came to be, and in that moment, became my new reality. I can see the city skyscrapers as I walk near my home, and as I quietly and calmly learn to adapt to driving and walking these new streets, I think now of how incredibly lucky I am.

I think of how I ever worried that Atlanta would be anything other than the greatest adventure of  my life thus far. I think of how much I love this overwhelming yet empowering change of pace,  surge of life, and different culture that I have found myself a part of. I am perplexed at how content I was with Macon when, compared to glittering Atlanta, Macon is but a dot on a map! If not for the people, Macon feels stifling now, too small, almost boxed in. Atlanta is a river rushing by, and Macon is but a quietly, slowly moving pool to its side.

I feel fulfilled, empowered, I feel full of potential and life. I feel whole, like a small piece of me that was missing fell into place. I feel happier than I remember in a long time. Every day brings truly new experiences, new places, new excitement. New faces, fresh air, room to breathe in this fabulously rough, earthly, grungy, sparkling, overwhelming, fast paced, crowded city. To know that this place lies at my fingertips every single day that I wake is the most incredibly exhilarating feeling of my life. In this immense city, there is a place for me, and I fit in like the missing word of a crossword puzzle: in a maze, but perfectly where I am supposed to be.

I walk places. I am inspired. I have written more poems in a week than I have in the past year. I feel challenged, but in control.

And I feel utterly, completely,  and wholly that I am right where I am supposed to be.