It’s not because I don’t love Corinth, I do. Where else can you take ripped jeans into a little old lady and pick them up, patched wonderfully, less than 24 hours later? Where else can you go to a restaurant where the owner, chef and all the waitresses not only know your name, but also what you are going to order as soon as you walk in? Where else can you get a huge breakfast of homemade biscuits and sausage and eggs and coffee and more for under five dollars (as long as you have cash)?
Small town life in Mississippi definitely has its perks.
But it contains an interesting paradox. People here are the nicest you’ll ever meet, but they still won’t accept you as one of their own if you aren’t. There is a subtle yet overriding sense that we are outsiders here, even after almost nine years. We'll never quite escape the "You're not from around here, are you?" questions, the comments on our accent, the snubbing of honors that ended up going to less deserving, but Corinth born-and-raised, people (yes I still hold a small amount of bitterness from high school).
We’re not the right religion, our grandmas don’t live down the corner, we didn’t go to elementary school, high school and college with the same group of friends from birth, and we don't like collard greens.
Who knows, maybe if we had made the decade mark we would be let into the mafia inner circle. But since I now call Boston home, and my parents are moving out of Mississippi in the new year, I guess we won’t find out.
Corinth has been a great place to live during high school and come back to from college. I made great friends, many of which I’ve sadly lost touch with over the years. I wouldn’t change living here. But when my parents move away and I no longer have a reason to call it ‘home,’ the feeling of being an outsider here won’t be anything new.
No comments:
Post a Comment