Homesick Texan

This is my adopted city, Houston:

I'm ashamed to say I haven't been giving it a chance. November was 5 years since I've moved and I don't regret it. I left Dallas, to come here and pursue some job opps and to marry Conrad. I have a great job (5 years next month) and Conrad and I have been married almost 4 years. I do miss my friends in Dallas, but I've made some great ones here in Houston. Some people I can't imagine my life without. It's so weird that 5 years ago, I didn't even know they existed!

So - it's been good to me in a LOT of respects. But I have not been ready to let go of Dallas, and even now, I'm not sure I need to. I think I just need to embrace Houston. When I talked to my counselor before Christmas and told him that I think I drive too far for work, I don't have time to workout, I don't like Houston, it's an ugly city, etc ... it really came out how much this move affected me. Not all for the bad, not all for the good. I told him I had more energy in Dallas, I had gained weight since coming here, etc etc - the complaints were a list a mile long. It's true that the city is HUGE- like 100 miles from the Northern most part to Galveston - and it's true the traffic is maybe just a shade less awful that LA or New York. I lived 7 miles from work in Dallas- so my daily life has changed a ton. But my problems are not ALL Houston's fault.

I found this awesome blog, written by a Houston ex-pat, now in New York City. You totally should check it out. http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/

It's a cooking blog mostly and I am SO getting her cookbook on Friday! She also seems to wax poetic about Houston -- and Texas in general and it really has sort of made me proud to live here. She clearly loves her life in NYC and clearly yearns for home too. Well, isn't that just the way for everyone? I could go back "home" to Dallas, Beaumont or South Carolina tomorrow ... and feel just as comfortable as I do in Tomball these days.

So anyway - I have been reading her blog and she's given some OUTSTANDING tips on what to do, where to go, where to eat in Houston. She gets TONS of comments from people who live here or have lived here and their information rocks too --- and I realized that I get to work as fast as I can. I don't venture far for lunch. When work is over, I hightail it out of here - and I get back to Tomball on the weekends and there I stay. I don't venture out. I don't experience new things. I have no idea really what this city has to offer. One of her commentors said something about going to college here and on the way INTO town, heading down I- 10, she passed all the refineries with a sinking heart. YEAH, me TOO! I used to think Houston was so ugly - so industrial -but, take a gander at the photo again. It's really NOT. I just haven't given it a chance.

I didn't want to make NY resolutions. I never keep them. BUT I think this year I want to strive to come out of my shell a little bit, out of my 5 mile radius on the weekends and get out and experience things. Her blog also said Houston is a "City of Cities" so true. There's no reason on the earth we shouldn't be able to get out here and again and head down the road apiece to one of those cute little cities for a day trip.

As I do, I'll blog about it here.

Here's to ... falling in love with Houston? Letting go of Dallas a little?
Happy New Year

Kah