Puzzle Pieces.

My paths have brought me back to Macon again today.

Funny enough, in Atlanta; city of so much everything, it's a lot harder to get Dr.'s appointments at the health department. I always just make an appointment at the one close to Macon because I'm always able to be seen there, and it's so easy. It's always been worth the drive to me, which is a little less than an hour, depending on how fast you drive.

Driving back is always like driving back into the past to me. The nostalgia never leaves - if anything, it just grows stronger, as I start to realize that the people I know and the connections I have in Macon are slowly growing smaller, fading away, until one day they will be nothing at all and Macon will simply be a place  used to live. Not a place to reconnect with old friends who still carry out their lives here. 2 years ago, I was sitting in this coffee shop lamenting about leaving here. 2 years later, I drive back with a sense of how small this world is here; how small the shops are, how small the community is. How people know each other. And I'm amazed at how I ended up here, in this little town of all places, when I had a world of choices at my feet my senior year of High School. 

Do I regret it? Spending time in a place as seemingly tiny and unimportant as Macon? I don't. Because I have memories here. And this is how I met Kris, a year after leaving it. 

I think that my decision to attend Wesleyan was grounded in a lot of reasons. Some of them were stupid teenage girl reasons. Others were very founded - Wesleyan is a wonderful school, and I loved the ability to be taught in classes that were reasonably sized and build community with my small group of friends. And Macon... as small as it is, is a good place to learn about who you are if you're a first-timer at living away from home. It wasn't too big to intimidate me, like Atlanta likely would have been. It was a good medium - set apart from my hometown of Orlando, and different, big enough to keep me occupied, small enough to feel like home away from home. I won't bore you with the details of the things I did here because that's encapsulated in a variety of my other blog posts here. The bottom line is, I know this place isn't the best. It's not even close to it. But it was my home, and I'll always go easy on Macon because of that. I'll miss seeing Lake Tobosofkee and shopping at River Crossing (The New Mall) and hanging out at one of the few speciality coffee shops in town. I loved the Rookery and the shitty, sketchy clubs and the old, moss covered tombstones of Rose Creek cemetery on the banks of the muddy Ocmulgee. And I think of these things... and I think of me, still a girl at 16, who came up here to spend a Summer some 6 years ago. I think of the hot, hot July days that summer of 2010 - no ocean breeze to cool them. I think of driving around the neighborhoods just to see the pretty houses - driven by someone, because I didn't have my license yet. I remember this goat that sometimes got into the house I stayed at. The strawberry patch: picking so many berries that we couldn't find enough use for them and we got sick of eating them. Staying up until the early morning playing video games. Wondering why I got cranky and shaky when I didn't eat - thinking I was hypoglycemic, when I couldn't have predicted that it was actually more. My online classes... the 10 page essays due every week. Walking barefoot on the gravel until my feet learned to be tough, sitting on the porch with the kittens at dusk,. Watching the kittens pass away... 4th of July by the lake. The best sweet tea at Aunt Shirley's on her lovely porch. 

Those things made me feel as though I belonged, and for a whisper in time, I did belong there. I made my life there. I met people there. I loved there. My heart broke there. I learned so much about life and I became who I needed to be. 

One summer spent in Forsyth, years ago - it must have been 4, or 5 - I was browsing on the internet, struggling to find a way to stay in Macon when I knew inevitably I'd have to leave: there were no physical therapy schools there for Graduate school.

Mercer had one... Mercer's main campus was in Macon. But this program was in Atlanta. Maybe it was close enough to make it work. Atlanta wasn't so bad, after all. 

I didn't make a decision yet, but the seed was planted. It was, inevitably, my love for Macon and my desire to stay close that pushed me to apply to Mercer. 

After I was accepted to Mercer in 2014, UCF back home called me. I was tempted to say yes... and maybe I could have. At the time I was accepted to Mercer and after I had applied to graduate school, it turns out I no longer had any more reason to stay in Macon. My 5-year long relationship hadn't worked out; it had died, and with it, my ability to belong here. 

Did I go back home where I had friends and family and for a brief period of time, I could relive that? I could get back what I'd sacrificed when I'd left home to make a life in Georgia. It was safe. It was familiar. 

Atlanta was huge, cold, unknown, mysterious. Scary. 

I thought for a second on the phone, feeling bad for going silent after being told I'd been accepted into their program. I'd already been accepted to Mercer.

I made the decision that would change the rest of my life:

I told them I'd made my decision to attend Mercer.

At the end of Summer, I moved to this big beautiful lonely city and I learned to love it. To find the kind of nooks and crannies I'd found in Macon. My life and my world blossomed. I met my friends Robert and Chelsea - I still dated someone from back home in Florida. In an effort to please them and also to see what it was all about after hearing Robert rave about it, I decided to attend my first swing dance. I struggled with it, I questioned whether I wanted to do it, but I stuck with it. Something drew me to it... even when I didn't dance well with the person I'd initially learned it for. The fun, the excitement, the variety - I loved it. I felt alive. Keep coming back. Something told me. Keep going. Exams came and went, competencies passed and failed, semesters ended... spring, my second semester in PT school, ended and I found myself at swing dance again. And there I found a man: There I found the man I'm about to spend the rest of my life with.

This is the story of how unlikely places can still lead you to where you need to be. How they can pave the path for greater things, and how life is a marvelous puzzle made up of pieces so tiny that sometimes you can't see the big picture until it's done and you get a good chunk of a section put together. Which takes time. 

Macon brought me to Atlanta, and Atlanta brought me to Kris. And PT school brought me to Kris, even when it discouraged me and made me feel as if maybe I'd chose the wrong profession. And dancing! Even dancing brought me to where I needed to be - despite saying I'd never learn to dance and swearing I have two left feet. 

2 years ago, I wondered where my life was going: I was headed into the great unknown. 2 years later, and I'm about to get married. I'm off to clinic. The puzzle pieces have come together: Not all, but some. Some of them have revealed their mysteries to me and showed me where my life is headed. 

2 years from now, I wonder what I'll be writing about then? All the new joys, responsibilities, and troubles I'll have, no doubt. I guess I'll have to wait until that section of the puzzle is complete.