The Leaves of Change...

I realized tonight that many times I think that the entire world has changed; instead it was I who changed.

While taking a walk in my hometown tonight I saw two of my guy friends from high school, so I stopped to talk to them (technically, I'm related to them--they're brothers). They're both hard working fella's. Neither went to college, yet they still have good jobs. Jesse works at a car shop repairing and replacing tires, while Luke works for my sister's husband as an electrical help person (I don't exactly know what he does.) No, these are not glamourous jobs, but the jobs keep the boys happy. I mean, they're actually happy--not fake happy like I sometimes think my friends and I are.

Jesse and Luke looked plain happy to be drinking some generic beer (meaning that it's a Pabst Blue Ribbon knock off), and they were happy with the new purchase of a '79 suburban, and happy to go to work tomorrow morning. Happy with their respective houses, with the partiers that live in our the neighborhood, with the old cars in the yard, with the trees that needed trimming (and the branch that fell out and scared us). It felt like they really didn't have a care in the world, because they were already happy (I couldn't stop smiling after talking with them--they radiated some of their happiness on me)!

After I got done talking with them I asked my mom when Jesse and Luke became so rednecked. She told me that they always have been that way. And, looking back, I realized that they had. They were always looking for the old cheap cars, they were happy working with thier hands in grease, oil and mud, they were happy with what they had. And to take a car out mudding, sometimes they live for that. They really don't care what other people think, either, they let themselves look how they damn well pleased (as I did, too, back then). I ran in the same group with them, so I just thought of it as our normal life style.

I'm the one who has changed. I don't know what made me change, or when, but I'm not rednecked anymore--well atleast not quite so rednecked.

Sure, I still take beer over champagne most days. I still like to go camping, and get drunk. I still think it's funny when we tell stupid jokes and stories in the afternoon with beer in our hands. And yeah, I still go to the bar, but I don't hang out all night, every night there.

Now, I worry too much about what other people think. I worry that I'm not good enough to do anything, and not good enough for any man. I always stive to do more (99% of the time I get in WAY over my head--teaching w/extra duties is a good example). I worry about money. I worry about what I look like. I worry even more about money. I worry about how I sound to others. I worry about every single little thing now, and I don't remember always being like that. Life was so much simpler when you don't worry. I guess it's the clash of redneck vs. the professional girl now.

I wish I could go back to that easy living lifestyle, even if I have to be a redneck again. Does that make sense?