Right Where You Are

Before the recent weeks, I was having a difficult time being content with my environment. It seemed like a barren place of entrapment at which I couldn’t draw any inspiration from. Faithfully following bloggers like Nicolette Mason produces a special kind of life envy, since she regularly posts beautiful pictures of New York in the spring time in addition to the amazing studios, designer stores, and endless places to explore that would be a dreamland for a small town girl like myself, who happens to crave aesthetically appealing sights and opportunities that my area tends to lack. Luckily, I also now follow Joyce Meyer as religiously as the fashion blogs and magazines I regularly gaze over and recently she said something in a sermon of hers that hit this issue of mine right on the head: “Learn to enjoy where you are on the way to where you’re going.”

After a few life changes and a brand new mind set, I now look at Greenville, North Carolina in a more positive light. This place doesn’t have a fashion week, a major art museum, an acceptable shopping mall, or many big, exciting events for me to attend but I discovered that it does hold many treasures I wasn’t aware of. There are fabulous boutiques downtown and not just night clubs. Barnes and Noble isn’t the only place of relaxation and reading – there is also a fantastic coffee shop with shelves full of books, Sunday brunch, and the occasional band show. The lake I drive past, though filthy and not fit for dipping, is a serene place of peaceful scenery and perfect for a nature walk (when it’s not over 80 degrees, as my roommate and I found out the hard way). Learning to smell the roses in my own backyard has shown me that I can exist happily when I seek joy wherever I am. I couldn’t see what was in my familiar neck of the woods (and it is the woods, indeed) because I was too busy wishing I was somewhere else. I’m not sure where my life and career will take me, and I still hope it’s to a place more exciting to me than where I am. This place will always be home, however, and that in itself makes it more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be.