Home Again...

I found myself on a flight "home" today, destined to catch up with old friends, see an old love, hug my family, and do my very best to not immediately want to fly on back to the Queen City...

Miami is full of ghosts for me. Born and raised in Dade, there aren't many places I don't know, haven't been, where memories of an Asha-past live. It's one of the reasons why coming here is so hard, why I've been dragging my feet, putting it off...but eventually, life and reality catches up with you. You can always go home again, but sometimes you really don't want to.

Don't get me wrong. There is much I love about my hometown. And I tend to bring the "Miami-girl" with me wherever I am... that's not the current issue.

Over the past few months, my evolution has led me to growth and strength I didn't know I had, didn't know I was capable of having. I'm different - I both acknowledge and accept that. But this is also brand-new, just out the womb, frighteningly fragile. And I worry that returning home, to where I was small, pushed into a box, unloved and afraid, completely lacking in radiance and light... I worry that my return has happened too soon.

I left love behind - in Charlotte, in Miami. Not just the romantic kind, though that is true too. :) But I found that, upon deplaning and once again being on my "birth-soil", I felt that I had been split in two, and that a missing part of myself was found again...

I have to admit that there is more Miami in me than I confess to. :) I can drive like a soldier in the rain, eat the spiciest foods, break into Spanglish as necessary, breathe deep in heat that would stifle most Charlotteans...and the ocean - she still sings to me.

I used to wonder at those songs. Were they the mythical siren's songs, calling me to my doom? Or were they lullabies...coaxing me to sleep, to dream, to desire more?

I have yet to see my family. But I have seen the rain. I have yet to confront my wayward lover. But I have cemented for myself that, without him, there is so much good in store for me in my life. Good that thinks I am amazing and beautiful and so much more, so why keep crying about it? I may not be rocking the six-pack I always wanted but I finally got to drive a hot red car... :)

Pluses and minuses...what would life be like without them?

So I'm home again...

...and its not too bad. :)


Love yourself.
-Asha