Coming Home to My Own Private Utopia

Sometimes in life, we have to take risks.  We intuitively know that they will most likely pay off, but the leap is always scary. Especially when we can't see what we're leaping into.  But we take the gamble and do it anyway.  This is basically what I did a little over a year ago when I decided to move back "home" to Arkansas, from a state I won't mention, practically on a whim.  I had done very little planning and even less of the "traditional" research that typically comes along with such a move. I hadn't really even checked out the city and knew very little about what type of living it afforded, but I was pretty sure it would somehow work out.  So when we eventually landed in Rogers, then Fayetteville, imagine my surprise when I discovered that I couldn't have chosen a better place to live if I'd tried.  This place is, well, me.  There is endless food, fun and natural pursuits to be found--something for everyone from the foodie to the art fanatic, and from the sports junkie to the river rat.  In short, if you can't find something you like about living here, then you probably don't like very much.

But that's only scratching the surface, and it isn't what I want to talk about.  What I really want to talk about is how I discovered that this was where I belonged.  After years of living in a place where I never quite found a comfort zone, I was ready for a change. I had reached the breaking point, and the "anywhere but here" attitude seemed to define my daily existence. I missed my family, I missed the seasons, I missed the trees, and I missed feeling like I belonged. In short, I needed something different, and something drastic. And I needed it yesterday.  Sure, I intuitively knew that my new destination would be miles better than what I had. But what I ended up getting has far exceeded my wildest expectations.  It's been everything I could have asked for and more.  In fact, this place has come to be like my own private utopia.  It just makes me happy.  And if nothing else in my life ever works again, I'll at least know I'm where I belong. One brilliant fall afternoon while driving home from work, during a (very) brief interlude when my mind and body were not completely consumed by the hysteria of college football, it occurred to me that not much else on Earth could compete with those harbingers of autumn that I had missed so much--the smell of burning fireplaces, the feel of the crisp air on my skin, and the energy of a town that vibrates with life this time of year.  But I soon discovered that I was wrong.  I was standing on my front porch late one night a few months ago, enjoying the frigid winter air, when I looked up into the dark sky and saw a handful snowflakes beginning to fall.  An hour or so later, as I stood barefoot and freezing on the freshly powdered sidewalk, with a sprinkling of white in my hair and an outstretched palm to catch the flakes that were falling faster and faster, I felt alive. And I was grateful. I had forgotten that there is nothing quite like the unique silence of snow falling at midnight, or the ethereal feel of a raw winter landscape muffled by a blanket of icy whiteness.  And I knew in that moment that this was where I belonged.  I had missed all of these things immensely while I was away, but I didn't truly appreciate the full magnitude of it until I moved back.  Standing there on that cold night, I finally understood.  It's why I came home.  It's why I live here.  And it's why I'm staying.