Goodbye, Queen City.

My family and I first arrived in Charlotte on my 12th birthday, in 1993.

My parents decided to take a few days to make the drive from our (my brother’s and my) childhood home of Jenks, Oklahoma- perhaps to create a bit of a buffer from the heartbreak of leaving. I remember as we crossed the state line exiting Oklahoma that my mom turned around and waved goodbye.

33 years.

Honestly, I can’t even believe I’ve been alive that long. It feels so odd, doesn’t it? Time is weird.

Of course there were stints when I left Charlotte- to go to college, to volunteer with Americorps in southern Colorado, to teach English in Ecuador.

But I always came back. It’s home.

Complicated as she may be, North Carolina has my heart.

It’s interesting that the most important thing about a place invariably ends up being its people.

Charlotte gave me my high school best friend and eventual maid of honor. It gave me my best friend from grad school.

It gave me a closer relationship with my mother’s side of the family, especially my grandma- who I visited every Thursday night for gossip and chicken salad after returning from Ecuador.

It gave me my husband, and our friends that we see for drinks or dinner and walks on our miles of forested greenway.

It gave me groups of people who spoke my language- a cherished To Be Magnetic meetup group and the lovable nerds of ChooseFI.

It gave me my name.

As I write, I’m sitting in the office on the second floor of our townhouse. The windows look out onto the most glorious forest, birds darting in and out of branches.

Over the next months and years I’ll be sitting at other windows, and I’m so excited for what we will see. But I’ll remember this too. Always.

Goodbye, Queen City.