Georgia on my mind.

Even though I am happily living in Greenville again for college, I have now called Georgia "home" for 6 & 1/2 years. If you had asked me at the beginning of that period what I liked about Georgia, the list would have been short after having to leave Greenville. I used to pretty much have "Why Georgia" by John Mayer on repeat (of course my interpretation was probably different than how he thought of it when he wrote it). But now, especially since coming home means coming back to Georgia, I have really been realizing the things that I love about it.

I love the silhouette of the pine trees against a sunset.
I love seeing baby deer with their moms in the fields.
I love Atlanta. I love the energy, the city lights, the feeling of opportunity that lives there.
I love the beaches. I love St. Simons Island & the memories I had the chance to make there with my high school friends.
I love Savannah. I love the history, the charm, the Southern-ness. I love the lighthouse on Tybee, & walking on River Street in downtown.
I love the open skies here at home. I love how you can see stars here better than anywhere else I've found.
I love that my family is from here - my dad's side, anyway. I love when we all get together & their accents & how even though we don't see each other very often, I feel like I see them every day because they're part of where I come from.
I love Madison. I love the lights at Christmas; I love walking around downtown; I love seeing a million people I know just driving down the road.

I love the people I've met here, the best friends I've made, & the growing I've done. When I moved here I was 12. Now I'm 7 years older, & a huge reason I grew into who I am is the experiences I had here & the people I met. Thankfully I was able to find amazing people who invested parts of their lives into mine, & helped me get through the challenges to really grow into something more. I love that all of that happened here. This is where I learned to drive, learned to fish when I was little, & where just about all of my memories with my dad's parents were made. Even though South Carolina will always be where I consider myself to be "from", Georgia turned out to be where I have done a whole lot of living & growing. And somehow this year especially, I've developed a new appreciation for that.

I'm very thankful for the memories, & looking forward to many, many more.