Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong (20 page)

(Here’s a hot tip to twenty-four-year-old me: just go ahead and accept that you will most likely
never
stop craving the approval of your parents, and as you get older, it doesn’t matter if you dig a ditch, have a baby, write a book, win an award, WHATEVER
 
—you still want to hear your parents say, “I’m proud of you. You did a really good job.”)

(Whether or not you actually did a good job will be completely inconsequential. You will be totally content with lip service.)

(Good talk.)

I kept thinking that I should feel completely at home in Myrtlewood; after all, everything was familiar, from friendly faces at the grocery store to folks in their perma-pews at church to the rhythm of the red lights on Mission Hill Drive. Gradually, though, I started to realize that even though Myrtlewood hadn’t changed that much in the seven years since I left for college, I had. I needed to figure out a way to be comfortable in my own
space
 
—which had a lot more to do with the interior of my heart than with my proximity to my old stomping grounds.

And then, in addition to all that, there was the David factor
 
—which, come to think of it, sort of sounds like a TV show about people who learn to demonstrate extraordinary courage in seemingly impossible situations. Like, for instance, when fighting with a giant.

Please know that I’m just as sorry as I can be that my brain works like it does.

Anyway.

David and I did start dating after I moved back to Myrtlewood, but in the grand scheme of things, our relationship lasted about a minute. Well, maybe six minutes. I was very insecure
 
—with a flair for the dramatic, no less
 
—so we bickered way more than I think either of us had expected. Eventually we had a huge fight because I lied to him about something stupid, and that argument only reinforced the idea that the recurring theme for our dating relationship was WE ARE NOT READY FOR THIS. David was more accepting of that truth than I was, so after we broke up, he threw himself into his new job while I basically modeled my life after a heartbreak montage in an after-school special. I wrote lengthy journal entries by candlelight, I bundled up in oversize sweaters and stared into space, I listened to old Anita Baker albums, and I sang through my tears when I’d hear “Ghost” by the Indigo Girls.

Needless to say, I did not see our parting of the ways as an opportunity to deal with my propensity for high drama.

I couldn’t even watch
Friends
without thinking,
I RELATE TO RACHEL’S FEELINGS FOR ROSS SO MUCH, Y’ALL.

It was the winter of my second year at Myrtlewood High before I started to have some healthy perspective about the breakup (better late than never, I suppose). I could totally see that I’d expected my relationship with David to magically make me happy and somehow erase all the internal questioning and doubting and wrestling that had marked the previous five or six years.

But hindsight had helped me realize something I’ve never forgotten: it’s no fair to hold a man responsible for fixing something he had no part in breaking.

And there just comes a point, I reckon
 
—a crossroads
 
—when it’s time to get honest with the Lord and yourself and move forward in the process of becoming a real-live grown-up.

You can imagine my surprise when I realized that was exactly what I intended to do.

T
HE
M
ARY
T
YLER
M
OORE
S
HOW
was all the rage when I was a little girl. I didn’t pay that much attention to it because I was too young to understand it, but more often than not, I was in the den when Mama and Daddy would watch. I vaguely knew the characters’ names and had a general sense of how everybody was connected, but mostly I’d just glance at Mary and her friends while I brushed out my dolls’ hair, wove pot holders on my little plastic loom, or fired up the Easy-Bake Oven. And really, there was only one part of the show I wanted to see every week: the end of the opening credits when Mary would throw her hat up in the sky.

I didn’t have my own hat-in-the-sky moment until about eighteen years later. And naturally I didn’t
literally
throw my hat in the air because, as best as I remember, I didn’t really own any hats until I turned thirty-five and started to see the sun as my face’s sworn enemy. However, I very much had a
figurative
hat-in-the-sky moment not too long after I turned twenty-five.

Perhaps this is a good time for me to tell you about that.

I’d applied for a job at Elliston High School
 
—right outside of Jackson, Mississippi
 
—because I very much wanted to live closer to the friends who knew me best. By then I’d spent almost two years teaching Spanish in Myrtlewood, and I was beyond ready to dig into some literature. So, with my principal Mr. Pearson’s blessing, I took a personal day to interview at Elliston, where I was hoping to get a job.

(For some reason it’s important to me to tell you that I wore a matching lightweight-sweater outfit to my interview
 
—as in camisole sweater, cardigan sweater, and SWEATER PANTS.)

(That’s right. I said SWEATER PANTS.)

(Why’d you hate me, nineties?)

I was scared out of my mind before that interview started
 
—probably because I knew I looked ridiculous in that head-to-toe, coral-colored sweater ensemble
 
—but for the first fifteen minutes, it was mostly an easygoing discussion with the principal, Mr. Dumas. Eventually, though, we started to talk about what I might be teaching if he hired me.

I felt free to chime in with my thoughts.

“You know”
 
—I paused here for a second to establish some really rock-solid eye contact so he’d know how earnest and sincere I was
 
—“I’ve really tried to analyze what grade I’d like to teach, and it seems to me that ninth or tenth would be better. I mean, I
could
be comfortable with eleventh or twelfth graders, but I really like the reading curriculum for the freshmen and sophomores.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Dumas replied.

“Plus,” I continued, “since next year will only be my third year in a high school classroom, I’d probably be more
comfortable
with the younger kids
 
—but I have taught the older kids in Myrtlewood, so I guess I’d be okay with them, too. I just like the idea of sort of getting in on the ground level and helping those ninth graders learn how to write an essay, you know?”

“Sure,” he said.

Then I leaned forward in my chair and smiled way too big while I waited for him to tell me what grade I was going to be teaching.

Finally he broke the silence. “Well, Sophie, here’s the thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

I had a feeling that “the thing” and I weren’t going to be BFFs anytime soon.

“I just don’t think I’m going to have any openings in English this year.”

“Sir?”

I knew exactly what he’d said, of course
 
—but I needed him to repeat it one more time so that maybe I could gather my thoughts and form a coherent sentence.

“I just don’t think
 
—well, actually I
know
 
—that I’m not going to have a place for you in English.”

By this point I was silently begging myself not to cry. I was supposed to be a professional, I was supposed to be a grown-up, and I was
not
supposed to break down in front of a man who I had known for only a little over a half hour.

“Oh. Okay.” I did my best not to look crestfallen
 
—and tried to figure out what to say next. Finally I decided to go with whatever I thought Mama would have said in that moment, because I knew that Mama would have said something kind.

“Well,” I began, “I sure do appreciate your meeting with me today, and who knows? Maybe something will work out down the road!”

My words may have
technically
been kind, but they sounded an awful lot like disappointment.

I started to reach for the folder I’d carried into the interview because, well, carrying a folder into an interview is just one of those things we all do, I guess in the event that someone hands us some important papers. Surprisingly, though, Mr. Dumas interrupted my attempt to make a gracious exit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been very clear. We’ll have a position for you next year. Just not in English. But I’m almost certain that there’s a spot for you.”

A wave of unbelief passed over me
 
—because surely not.
Surely not.

SURELY. DANG. NOT.

And then, in the most matter-of-fact way, he said it. “We have an opening for a Spanish I teacher.”

And that’s pretty much the moment when I wanted to set my hair on fire.

Thankfully, though, I recovered enough to murmur and nod my way through the rest of our conversation. By the time I left Mr. Dumas’s office, I’d agreed to accept the Spanish position at Elliston High
 
—pending the superintendent’s approval. Sure, I was slightly bummed about teaching Spanish again, but I was elated by the prospect of moving to Jackson, which felt like the first truly independent decision I’d ever made.

I walked slowly out to the parking lot, and before I opened my car door, I stopped to look around and take in what would more than likely be the backdrop for the next phase of my life. I felt like a combination of Melanie Griffith at the end of
Working Girl
, Lily Tomlin at the end of
9 to 5
 
—and our girl MTM at the end of her opening credits. Granted, all the details of my new job weren’t set in stone, but the strong possibility of it felt like a major step forward.

It was my personal hat-in-the-sky moment.

Or sombrero, as it were.

Every once in a while I wish I’d kept a list of the good decisions and the bad decisions for each year of my life. It’s not because I’d like to pat myself on the back for all the good ones and slip into some quality self-loathing over all the bad ones; it’s because I think that, for the most part, the things that I thought were such a big deal would make me laugh.

For example, if I had chronicled some of the more trivial bad decisions of, oh, 1990, the list would have looked a little something like this:

1. Letting my hair grow out to one length (it looked like Andre’s on
   The Real World: New York
   , only Andre looked way better with a ponytail than I did)
   
2. Engaging in a short-lived flirtation with whiskey (some lessons you can only learn the hard way, I reckon)
   
3. Developing to a strong allegiance to the musical stylings of Paula Abdul
   
4. Participating in an ill-advised three-day workout kick that left me unable to bend my knees
   
5. Wearing a blue-velvet dress with shoulder pads so huge that my date to a fancy dance actually introduced me to people by saying, “This is my date, Sophie
    
   —and these are her sleeves.”
   

On the contrary, if I’d made a list of my good decisions in, say, 1995, the list would have been short and to the point:

1. Overcoming an obsession with honeydew melon candles that can only be described as a stronghold
   
2. Finally balancing my checking account, thanks to some loving intervention
   
3. Moving to Jackson
   
4. Moving to Jackson
   
5. Moving to Jackson
   

Not that moving to Jackson was a big deal or anything.

And it wasn’t that Myrtlewood had been bad. The people there were great, and in the grand scheme of my life, I learned more about myself in those two years than any two years since. Jackson, though, meant that I was once again in the same town as my childhood friend Kim, along with my college friends Marion and Tracey. We were all in different phases of life by then
 
—Marion and Tracey were mamas, Kim was married, and I was single
 
—but it didn’t matter. It was comforting just to know they lived in the generalish vicinity of my little one-bedroom apartment that was right across the street from the mall.

(I know. I lived right across the street from a mall.)

(It was like all my childhood dreams had come true.)

It was sort of a strange and unexpected development, but from the moment I unpacked my first moving box in Jackson, I was determined to be a more responsible person. The changes didn’t happen right away, but gradually I incorporated a pretty good measure of consistency into my life. I stuck to a budget, I exercised, I decorated my apartment, I worked hard at my job, and I finished my teaching certification in English
and
Spanish, because GET A CLUE, EUNICE
 
—THE SPANISH SEEMS TO BE A
PATTERN. For the first time I had a genuine awareness that I was making a life for myself, and I savored it. I really did.

The best part was how quickly I felt a sense of community with the people around me. My coworkers, who included Kimberly, were a social bunch, and from my very first day at Elliston High they welcomed me into the fold. They included me in their weekday lunches, their Thursday night dinners, and their just-because get-togethers. It was a group full of storytellers, and I’d spend most of every outing listening as if my life depended on it and laughing so hard I might as well have done a thirty-minute ab workout.

I was only about 120 miles from my grad school apartment in Starkville, but I might as well have been a world away.

In the South there are three cornerstones of society that most people hold in high regard: family, church, and high school football. College football is a big deal too, of course, but those other three things bind communities together. Elliston, Mississippi, was no exception.

At the time, Elliston High School was one of the biggest high schools in Mississippi, and while sports in general were a really big deal, football was the biggest deal of all. The head coach was a man named Ben Johnston, and there was no question that he ruled the athletics roost in Elliston. A lifelong resident of Mississippi, he knew or knew of just about everybody in the state’s high school football circles, and when he wasn’t at school, he was usually holding court at a Rotary Club luncheon or a booster club meeting. Like many Southern coaches, he was gruff voiced from years of yelling at practice, stiff kneed from decades of running drills, and red faced from too much sun (and too little blood pressure medication).

He also happened to be hilarious.

On Thursday nights during football season, a group of Elliston teachers faithfully met for supper and no small degree of storytelling at the Iron Horse Grill in downtown Jackson. I’m not sure when the tradition started, but Kim insisted that I go with her and her husband, Jody, on the Thursday before my first-ever EHS football game. There were enough of us to take up a gigantic booth as well as four or five tables, and what I remember more
than anything else was that these people were just endlessly entertained by one another.