-On 27-

This is that place you may have passed one time at 45MPH...

 

 

You know how when your family has that place out of town that you travel to frequently and you feel like you know the trip so well you could see it driving with your eyes closed? That's how I feel about Hwy 27. I've headed either North or South on 27 most everyday of my life, I guess. And this little spot is so amazingly cool, you know, if you're in to delapidated structures and all. (Which I am, so... YAY.) This building sits at the junction of 27 and 19, the Florida-Georgia Parkway. I love flashing through those blinking caution lights all the way down the state wondering, "Do people really live here in... Two Egg!?" Well, I'm sure they do. But I digress.

 

And so stands, wearily, on the edge of rememberance, this old store-front. I stopped here with my love while passing through recently to snoop for secrets, and wonder what happened, and wander the scene. There were bluberry bushes around back...

 

I like the way my belly feels when I peer into windows not knowing what I might find. 'Cause, really, how often do you find underbrush growing within a building? I like the way my mind and my eyes search every old shelf, dusty corner, for some sign of previous life. All the while I remember my previous life, and that not-so-old house that was left much in the same way this one must have looked when I fled those years ago. Sometimes the darkness in others and within ourselves is more subtle than dusk falling second by second. Sometimes the best thing to do is run...



 

Standing in this time warp, I contemplated what seemed like my entire existence in a matter of 3 minutes. I see metaphors in most everything, and this building was no exception. What ever destroyed it is gone now, and the new growth within its unnatural walls tout a feral conformity to new laws of life. It is like me. Those who have done their part to belittle and invalidate me are no longer around, and the new life I've been given resembles my old purpose but a little. I have been formed and reformed by the elements surrounding me, and the most basic and truest form of myself is still here.....life has just peeled back a few layers to give me a better view of the sky ;)

I prefer to 'endure' rather than to 'suffer'

This shiii is crazy. Or maybe I am?

Perhaps I could tell you that I am a recovering alcoholic of the manic depressive type with a ton on my mind and a laptop at my fingers. There exists a medical chart roughly 52mm thick in some office somewhere that probably paints a pretty rough picture of my personality...though I think enough is quite evident already in my daily behavior and jaunts into 'civilian' society to clearly define my issues: Bipolar, PTSD, ADHD......whatever. My diseases and disorders, while opressive and foreboding, do not necessarily define me. I am a woman. I am a woman old enough to do whatever I wish, and still young enough to jump in feet first. I am a mother. I am a mother who had to learn what it meant to love my child as she grew, because it didn't happen in my heart simply by rite of her birth. I am a student. This Fall semester will see the conclusion of my undergraduate work after so many years of setbacks and hard work. I am a partner and friend. I give my love to a man whom I'm pretty sure was given directly to me by God, and all the rest of what I have is spread like joy to my friends, without whom I would not be alive. And I write.....

I write and I snap photos and I will share this journey as I go. THIS is an amazing life far beyond my wildest dreams, and it's time to start documenting the dang thing!