Don't get me wrong; Tampa has been great so far. We've got a cute little house in a great neighborhood, we're getting plugged into a fantastic church here, and we've even hung out with people a few times. Not bad considering we got here 11 days ago. I feel confident that Tampa is going to be a great move for us as a newly married couple, that Cori's job will be a great fit for him and that God is going to grow us in new ways in this different season.
But New Orleans was my heart and soul for 5 pivotal years, and when we left, a piece of my heart stayed there. I miss the friends who were family, I miss driving down St. Charles Avenue, I miss our favorite restaurants, I miss the familiarity and the settled life I had there. It's been so weird to realize that school has started back up in New Orleans and that there's this rhythm that I lived and breathed for 3 years as a teacher, going on without me. New Orleans is where I became an adult, where I learned to delight in who God made me to be, where I made some of the best friends ever, where I ate some of the most amazing meals in existence, where I ran a marathon and became a teacher. It's where I met Cori, where I fell in love with him, where he asked me to marry him.
Things weren't perfect there, and the truth is, for as much joy as I experienced in New Orleans, there was heartbreak and pain as well. But it was my home, and I love it, will always love it.
This week, I've been reminding myself how I never could have predicted the beauty that God brought in my life these last 5 years, and I have to trust that He's got good plans for me in this new season as well. When I miss New Orleans, I try to turn it into a prayer of thanksgiving, because how blessed am I that I have so much to miss? My sorrow reflects the joy that I was given for 5 years, so I take my homesickness as a reminder of an amazing season of life.
There's a popular bumper sticker in New Orleans, particularly after Katrina, when so many New Orleanians were displaced across the nation. It said, 'Be a New Orleanian, wherever you are.' And so I will. Just as I left a bit of myself behind in New Orleans, I'll take a bit of New Orleans with me... in my cooking (Cajun spices, shrimp creole, and jambalaya!), in my obsession with fleur de lis and the New Orleans Saints, in the phone calls and visits and pictures, in the way I'll always honor August 29th as the Katrina anniversary, in my fondness for Mardi Gras beads, and in my heart. I'll always be a New Orleanian, no matter where I am.
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