For everyone, regardless of how stationary or nomadic their life may be, there is one place that is more home than any other. It is that one place that makes them experience things not necessarily unique, but certainly special. The one place that inspires emotions like no other. The one place that literally makes you cry those happy tears because you just cannot help yourself. For me, that one place is Oak Lawn.

I took today off so that I could go make the final preparations for my divorce. I'm going to the family court building to file all the finished paperwork and get the entire ordeal over with. This so I will be a legally and completely divorced woman in just over two months. It has been a long time coming! Obviously I am thrilled.

Yesterday, giving thought to how I should spend this beautiful day, I knew there would be no better way to start it than by spending the morning at my favorite Starbuck's on Lemmon and Knight, in Oak Lawn. This morning, as I neared my destination, I was overcome by feelings I'd thought long past. I was filled with the sense that I was truly headed toward home. My heart started pounding and the muscles in my face forced my mouth into a most relaxed smile. But the moment I turned onto Rawlins and drove down that beautiful street, which holds such special memories, I began to cry. I was, truly, home.

I moved to Oak Lawn nearly two years ago, in December of 2003, amidst the censure of both my parents and my friends.
- "Why do you want to move to downtown Dallas? It's too far away from me!" ~ Disaster Girl*
- "Why do you want to move so far from me that I won't be able to run and help you if you need me?" ~ Mom
- "Why do you want to live in a neighborhood where your children are going to be exposed to drugs, prostitution, and those fags?" ~ Dad**
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Why?"
My answer was simple to each of them, "Because I have always wanted to live in Dallas."

Still, they tried to tell me I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Mostly, they tried to tell me I was moving to Oak Lawn because of Ferdinand. I wasn't, but there was no convincing my critics, so I simply stopped arguing and made the move.

I will not deny that during the time I lived there I experienced some very lonely moments, but I was lonely within myself. I can only imagine how much more isolated I would have felt had I been living somewhere less pleasing to me. My loneliness was part of a growth and self-discovery process I was destined to go through, regardless.

While I was in Oak Lawn, I began to learn whom I really was and what I really wanted. I had recently reclaimed myself, but it was there that I learned how to be myself. It was there that I truly experienced love and heartbreak for the first time. It was there that I first understood what independence was, both the positives and the negatives of it. It was there that I was home.

Oak Lawn holds so many tender memories for me...happy, sad...every facet of emotion. When I left there, it was heart-wrenching and I would find myself going back to my Starbuck's on a weekly basis, sometimes more. I had spent countless mornings on their patio, with Ferdinand, as a lover, and later, as a friend. When I went back I would sit there, feeling homesick and sorry for myself. So finally, seven months ago, I stopped going. I had convinced myself that my feelings for the place were created by my inability to let go of that part of my life. Now, as I sit in the same chair at the same table I had so often occupied, I feel victorious.

As I drove in this morning, the feelings I experienced were real and true. They were unclouded by any inability to let go or say goodbye. So, now I am smiling. I can truly say, with no biased opinion, that this was my one true home.

I have moved on. I look back, occasionally, but now I look back with all fondness and gratitude. Who knows what the future holds for me? I certainly do not. But maybe someday I will return home...for more than coffee.

*I would like to apologize to Crisis of Infinite Monkeys for stealing the name Disaster Girl, but I couldn't help myself. It just fit!
**The slanderous term used was part of a direct quote from my father, and not the opinion of myself, Blogger, or Bloodsport Trivia.