Live and Let Live

We’ve now been in Texas for close to two months.  It isn’t as lonely as I feared it would be, and I haven’t found my people yet.*  (It’s the one thing I miss about Oklahoma….my people.)  What I have discovered is a wonderfully non-judgmental attitude from the people we meet.

In Oklahoma City, I got used to the little comments on our family’s size. Some of the comments were innocuous, “You’ve got your hands full there”, while others were shockingly unkind, “It’s because of your irresponsible breeding habits that the world is overpopulated.” Nobody in Wylie, Texas seems to give a good gosh darn how many people live in our house or how they all got here.

Everyone we’ve met, from the checkout girl at the grocery to the single woman who lives across the street, seems to think that it’s our business and that if we’re happy then why should they mind?

For the first time in years, I take all my children to the grocery store at the same time and don’t worry about the response we’ll get.  Folks just smile at my crowd of followers and a couple elderly gentlemen have come over to shake my hand.  The first time I brought them all with me to pick up milk, I prepped them in the car “We’re just getting milk.  It’s in and out.  You’d better all behave.”  (I don’t really know what would have happened if they hadn’t behaved, but I felt like they might need a warning.)  Yesterday, I caught myself at the end of the food run and realized that I had 6 children with me (including #7 in that count) and I’d been completely relaxed the entire time.

Texas isn’t the place of my birth, but I grew up here.  Somehow in the years up north I’d forgotten that Texans mind their own business and take folks at face value.  It is the way I was raised, and I’ve missed it.  There is something welcoming and downright friendly about people who don’t even think to presume to tell you how to live.  Are you happy?  That’s all that counts, and that’s exactly as it should be.

The bad news is that it’s not home yet.  The good news is that it will be.

*Except for my neighbor C. who reads my blog and needs to come over so we can go get chai lattes and shop for frog bracelets.