Half-Life

Welp, for those of you who don't know by now, I'm a Georgia resident, Augusta to be specific. This is where I went to school, caught the bus, got off the bus, graduated, walked the streets, found Jesus, and experienced most of the biggest events in my life. And yeah, I love this side da block. The Heart of the Dirty/Soul South.

BUT, there's another spot I call home as well. Ya see, I was born in GA and grew up here mainly, but every night as a youngin, I went home to a house in the woods of Trenton, South Carolina. Isolated from friends, phones, traffic, and cable TV, that's where I dropped my books, did my homework, ate dinner, locked up in my room, and thought my way into the future. It's where I spent my weekends, watching cartoons, occasionally going outside and exploring, mainly wishing I was close to my peeps.

Ya know, when I was in South Carolina, all I wanted was to get out of South Carolina. I mean, my friends were always doing stuff without me and such, but that's a long drive to ask anybody to make just so I could kick it with em. Over time, I just kinda grew to despise the state. Especially when my pops and I weren't getting along.

But the thing is, in retrospect, South Carolina wasn't so bad. My family over there always has been very kind. The church I attended missed the mark for me, but it couldn't be totally off base to have such a nice congregation. Matter of fact, today was Family Day; pops told me about it a few days ago, and I decided to make my way over there. It was WONDERFUL seeing everybody again. All the lil short kids that used to run around are in COLLEGE now. I feel old as crap, lol. A lot of time has passed.

One of the first faces I saw when I got there was my old homie Rashad. Rashad and I were very close in age and very similar in demeanor. So we picked up where we left off, and that really made me feel at home. I spent a good bit of time after that remembering faces and shaking hands and hugging people. I saw my old high school teacher Mr. Martin; didn't know he was back in the SC area, but he's living right across the street from the old church now, ha.

There were several pretty young ladies there as well (only one of whom I was familiar with). But Jigabod got one rule bout dat: Jigabod ain gon holla at NO female at NO family occasion. Understand, I come from one of those "family" churches, as in my family is 3/4 the congregation. Also understand I got a lot of GORGEOUS faces in my family (not saying I'm one of em, I'll let you [women] decide that for yaselves sometime) so it's nothing for me to find out a beautiful young lady is kin to me. If it happened at my high school in a city I had never been in before in the middle of the boondocks, then it can DEFINTELY happen on Family Day. Plus...Ms. Mildred said I better not have a wife/girlfriend now cuz she wants me to focus on a career anyway, lol.

Besides the warm feelings, family, and hospitality, what I liked most about going back was the air. Nothing like being surrounded by trees, even if city lights are what fascinate me. At the close of my visit, I went to my grandmother's house right up the street (half the church lives right up the street; it's crazy) and caught a breeze with her for a while. My uncle was there; he's had it rough in his later years, but he's just as loving as he ever was, and animated, lol. Grandma started showing me pics of different cousins that she had on a shelf in her den. She has a frame with two pictures in it: one is my beautiful younger cousin and adjacent is my beautiful younger sister. She was admiring how the pictures seem to fit: my cousin was on the left leaning right and my sis was on the right leaning left.

It's amazing; all my bad feelings toward South Carolina I can attribute to like 2-3 people. But being at Family Day, I realized there were a plethora of other reasons for me to come back. And shoot, maybe I could bring my Georgia peeps with me next time. There's a psychological block I have on that area from things in the past, but I think maybe it's time to shed that and incorporate my old half-life into my new life. I'm capable now; I can come and go as I please, right?

And the funny thing... If I wasn't going to church just for the Word and the teaching, I maybe could go back to my old church and be right at home with the other side of my family. But I left because I wasn't being spiritually fed there; family won't get me into Heaven. But it kinda felt like Heaven being with my family. How ironic.

Jesus PeaceB-J