Coming Clean

Ever since I moved to Tennessee 13 years ago I have had a hard time acclimating myself with the different way of life here. I mean it is only 350+ miles from where I grew up but it feels at times like a million miles away.

I completed my last 7 years of school in a very small town. I mean small, we had 31 students in our graduation class. It was small, safe and not fashionable at all. People lived in all sorts of dwellings. Popularity in school did not require you to live in a fabulous home, in the right neighborhood. Your parents did not have to drive the most expensive vehicles. And almost every one's clothes came from Wal-mart or JC Penney. It was nice.

That was what I knew. Now fast forward to my life now. Everything is about what kind of house you have, what you drive, where you live, what kind of clothes you wear. It is all about status. There are people going broke trying to keep up with everyone else.

So here is where I come clean. We live on my hubby's family farm in West Tennessee. We have lived here for all but 2 years of our 13 year marriage. And now here's the clincher, we live in a mobile home. Yes, for the last 8 years we have been living in a single wide mobile home.

I have lived through the smirks, the looks, and the horror on peoples faces when they find out we live in a mobile home. It gets old really quick. Some even act like we are beneath them. We are not worthy of their presence. Our status in the society is not even on the radar. These looks and actual opinions expressed by others used to bother me. But now things are just different.

I have reached that point in which I really don't care what others think about where I live. As long as I am happy that is what matters, and I am happy. Yes, I do want a nice home to raise my family. But, if that means I have to send my kids back to school so that I can work to pay for this home, then that doesn't work for me. We are planning to build a home on our part of the family farm in a year or two, but I am happy with our lives now.

I feel even better now watching and hearing about so many loosing their homes because they have more than they can handle financially. I love my little mobile home even more.

Then there is the fact that we have went to look at homes that I feel comfortable buying, price wise that is, and they have been smaller, and just as cheaply built as most mobile homes. Don't think so.

So there you have it. I have come clean. Yes, I live in a mobile home, a nice one, and I am proud of it.