Perhaps the grass isn't always greener

Now that I’ve made a semi-permanent decision to stay in the area and start back with school this semester, I have decided that I need to learn to love where I am no matter where that might be. For now it’s living in Arlington, working in Dallas, and playing all over the metroplex and sometimes Austin. First of all, I had a great New Year’s Eve. I spent it with some of my close friends and some more of their friends down in Austin. We went out on sixth street, listened to some live music, danced the night away, drank a lot of drinks. I am very happy with my decision to spend NYE 2006 in Austin. After all, it has the best live music scene in the southern US, and thanks to Real World Austin, the sixth street party scene has also had quite a bit of due recognition. It was an awesome night and I hope that the gaiety of NYE will be indicative of the good times ahead in 007.

So having Austin within a three-hour drive is one good thing about being here. But alas there are a lot of other good things about being here that I am slowly realizing. As I was driving home from work tonight I began to notice that I do live in a truly awesome area. I have picked up a new route home to avoid some of the heavier traffic and that includes driving straight through the middle of DFW International Airport. So while I’m driving through the middle of the airport for a small $2 toll (made simple by the invention of tolltags, god bless them), I start to look around me at this giant hub of international travel that sees thousands of passengers from all over the world daily and that’s larger than the island of Manhattan in terms of land area and I realize for the first time how very cool it is.¹ I hadn’t really ever noticed it before. So from there I exit the airport and start driving down I-30 and that’s when I pass the original Six Flags.² I pass giant roller coasters that I have memories of going on since the time I was twelve when my older sister finally persuaded me to start riding on roller coasters. In fact the Shockwave, the first roller coaster I ever rode, sits right next to the highway, its infamous double loops looming next to the eastbound lanes. And next door to this giant theme park is Ameriquest field where I will watch the Texas Rangers play baseball again come this Spring. I have very fond memories of going to Ranger’s games with my family since I was about seven years old, back when Nolan Ryan was the best pitcher in baseball and when they played all their games at the old-school ballpark before building Ameriquest. Directly across the highway from here is Six Flags Hurricane Harbor- a fun-filled water park and the location of my first real summer job.

As I continue past Ameriquest, I can see the 10 or so giant cranes raised in the distance in the middle of Arlington where they are constructing the Dallas Cowboys New Stadium (a working title) to be opened in 2008 or 2009. As I drive and take all this in I admit to myself that I enjoy the fact that I pass a couple of theme parks, the home of the Texas Rangers, and the future home of the Dallas Cowboys on my drive home from work each day.

I eventually exit Cooper and start Southbound through the heart of Arlington. Cooper is one of the busiest streets in Tarrant County, but I feel a certain kind of ownership on this stretch of road, a road I have driven ever since I could legally drive. This is when the appreciation of my hometown begins to come into play. Soon after exiting the highway, I pass Arlington Memorial Hospital where my two sisters and I were all born, where I had my appendix removed when I was twelve, where we found out my dad had cancer. Some very important events in my life occurred in that collection of hospital buildings. As I continue down Cooper I drive through UT-Arlington where both of my parents graduated from college and less than a mile past that is Arlington High School, my alma mater. The AHS gym sits next to the road and every time I drive past it, I think of all the thousands of hours I spent throughout high school in that gym practicing, running lines, playing games.

I think the reason that I am able to finally appreciate Arlington in all of its new and old glory is because I no longer feel bound by the perimeters of this city. I have finally spent some time away from home and I am incredibly confident that I will again in the near future and because of this I feel as though I have been freed to appreciate my hometown for the feelings of comfort and sentimentality that it evokes. I don’t want to be jaded about being home anymore. I want to enjoy it. It really is all in one’s perspective. I can say very confidently that I really do love this town and all it offers- the comforts of home along with some of the sparkle of living in and around world-class cities. For the first time, I feel as though I am finally feeling content with where I am instead of always thinking something better is out there waiting for me. And for me, that feeling, no matter how short-lived, is a very welcome feeling indeed.

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¹DFW International is the fourth largest airport in the world in terms of land area at nearly 18000 acres, the third busiest in the world in terms of aircraft movement, and the sixth busiest in the world in terms of passenger traffic (according to Wikipedia).

²For those of you familiar with the Six Flags theme parks, you might not know that the name “six flags” refers to the flags of the six different nations that have governed Texas (France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the USA).