I Am the Storm Shelter
I thought
I'd lost everything.
In all practical sense...
I had.
My home.
My people.
My future
as I understood it.
My certainty.
Some days,
it still feels that way.
Honestly...
more days than not,
it feels that way.
But almost
everything
I just named...
was always
going to change.
My pocket size
has changed.
The four wheels
I show up in
have changed.
The roof I listen
to the rain on
isn't metal anymore.
The porch I invite you onto
has changed zip codes.
This isn't the first time
those things have changed.
I hope it isn't
the last.
Because none of those things
were ever who I was.
Then it hit me…
in the way a train horn does
at three o’clock in the morning.
I AM THE DAMN STORM SHELTER
Not the porch.
Not the house.
Not the truck.
Not the money.
Not the address.
Me.
What hasn't changed...
is the woman
who welcomed you inside.
Whether it was
a porch...
a patio...
or a passenger seat.
A hand-me-down Nissan
My first truck
Daddy's Country Cadillac.
Or a Mercedes-Benz.
She showed up.
She made room.
She loved deeply.
She still does.
The practical things changed.
I remain.
I wasn't becoming
I was finding my way back
To myself.
I found her standing right where I left her.
Hand out.
Waiting…
I had to accept what I'd put her through.
The years I ignored her.
The promises I broke to her.
The times I chose everyone else's comfort over her peace.
No amount of money...
No different address...
No apology...
could ever give her those years back.
So I did the only thing
I had left to do.
I sat down beside her.
I Listened.
I Apologized.
I Forgave us both.
Because she never left.
I just kept leaving.
She just kept staying.
Like Momma always said...
"Everywhere you go,
there you are."
For years, I thought
that only had one meaning.
I could never outrun my own shadow.
Now...
I think she also meant…
As long as I remained true
to who I was…
It wouldn’t matter where I was
I’d always find my way home.
The woman who remained.
The woman my daddy raised.
The woman my children deserve.
The woman I've spent years
trying to become...
was right there, coffee in hand
on her front porch swing
saying, “Welcome y’all, come on in.”
So I did.
Southern Peanut <3
