I was born and raised in Tallahassee before moving to Gainesville in the summer of 1993. Barely 20 years old and tired of being unable to turn a corner without bumping into someone who knew me, or knew of me by virtue of my rather popular law enforcement father, I was eager to get out of town and spread my wings a bit. My sister and her husband had moved to Gainesville less than a year before for work, and offered to put me up for a few months till I had a job and found a place on my own. That was all the incentive I needed.
I called a friend of mine who ran the local temp agency to see if she had any ideas for my new job search. She was eager to contact her pal at the temp agency in Gainesville to see if there were any good job prospects she was looking to fill. Two weeks later I was making a day trip to Gator Country to interview for a job with a research & development firm as their receptionist/secretary. Two weeks after that I was making my move with all of my worldly possessions stuffed in the trunk and back seat of my Chevy Cavalier. The first three months in town passed quickly as I settled in to my new routines, got lost multiple times driving around a new city, and set about finding roommates and a place to live.
The first few years I was in Gainesville I had a hard time reconciling the fact that I was home. To me, home was back in Tallahassee. Home was Momma’s house. No matter how many roots I began to put down in Gainesville with my career, my new relationships, and what would become my new family – Gainesville never felt like home.
It wasn’t until after I was married and packing for yet another move – this one to Lafayette, Louisiana – did I begin to feel like Gainesville was home. A home that all of a sudden wasn’t really mine anymore. Being in Louisiana, so far away from my family, was excruciatingly difficult. We made our way in that small Cajun town and quickly developed friendships that last even now. But I was homesick, for Gainesville of all places.
Two short years later, in yet another move, we found our way back to Gator Country. This time with a baby girl buckled in the back seat of a four-dour sedan, we were home. Roots that had been established years before were now reinforced and made stronger. Another baby, a boy, added to our family and things seemed quite permanent. Years passed, some things stayed the same, but others changed drastically. “Family” took on a different meaning, lists of “his” and “hers” were made and yet another moving day was had.
I began to think seriously about my ties back home to Tallahassee. The reasons for being in Gainesville had changed so much over time and I felt a continual pull to return to the roots that had been in place all along. People in my life, who I had counted on in the past, were no longer there. I felt very alone and adrift.
One day while visiting with my family back in Tallahassee, I received a phone call from my daughter informing me that her father was moving back to Gainesville. His previously employer had moved him back to Louisiana but the distance away from his children was just to great. It had taken time, but he had finally found a new job back in Gainesville. Back home. I knew in that instant, that finally – Gainesville was my home too. There was no way I could move my children away from their father and sever those ties, after he had gone to such lengths to return to them.
We were all home.
The earliest memories of my faith were as a toddler, climbing in and out of the lap of my mother as we sat on the back pew of the church. I remember little more than a few names that float in and out of my mind and run together as a single face.