Here’s the thing.
San Francisco has been a really good move from Chicago, but it’s just not New Orleans.
I have days where I think I can live away from New Orleans and then I look at pictures from past visits and my heart aches for that city.
Part of me is worried I’ll move home one day and will realize that my homesick heart has romanticized the place for me. That distance made me love it more because I was missing it. That after ten years of being home I’ll be ready to pack up and leave again.
But then I think about the future. And being married and having kids and I can’t help but want them to be little New Orleanians through and through. To have them be around my family and G’s family and grow up in the same environment I did. Going to parades. Eating gumbo. Getting snowballs after school. Having that swamp water in their blood.
I know that every person is prideful to a fault when it comes to their hometown, but I can’t help but think that the nola pride runs deeper. Something in that city is hooked inside of my body and no matter how far I go, I can always feel it tugging me back. Telling me that I’ve gone far enough and it’s time to come home.
I’m grateful to get to experience new places and it boggles my mind that I can now say I’ve lived in Chicago and San Francisco.
But at the same time, I miss those nola sunsets. I miss daiquiris. I miss Mardi Gras. King Cake. The sound of the marching bands drum line as they go down the route. That coffee & chicory. The giant oak trees with their spanish moss hanging down the branches. I miss crawfish. Snowballs on a hot day. Po boys and that Mississippi River.
And goodness gracious do I miss my momma.