songs that speak

I love music. I love it in every shape form and fashion. Country, classic rock, acapella, rap, indie, jazz, r&b....I love it all. I can appreciate the talent and creativity in all music. There are some songs that reach out and speak to me though.

I'm sure you have songs in your life that do the same. Maybe it's a hymn you sang growing up or the song that you danced to for the first time at your wedding.

I grew up in a part of Panama City called Bayou George. It was out in the country. We played hide and go seek after dark in the woods. We rode Four-wheelers in the mud. There were a lot of kids my age in the neighborhood so there was always something to do. Our Summers were spent wandering the roads of our neighborhood.

My parents built our house on 7130 Everest St when I was about to start kindergarten. It was a 3 bedroom 2 bath brick home with a pool in the backyard. I transferred elementary schools and moved into a neighborhood with kids I had never met. I made best friends that are still by my side to this very day.

Our house was a place of middle school "dances" in our garage, slumber parties, end of the year bashes, volleyball games, 4th of July pool parties and so much more. I had my first kiss in that house. Many a chase down the hall by my mother with a paddle. My dog is buried in the backyard. My hand prints are on the back porch. The mail box is bent over from me hitting it with my go-cart.

When I was a junior in high school my parents began building my mother's dream home on the water in Panama City. She has a folder of all her ideas for the house. They designed the house and construction began. I was mad. It was about to be my senior year and they were making me move into a new house that was not home.

I missed the comfort of the country. I missed driving through the neighborhood and stopping to see friends. I missed the smell of our old house. I missed MY house.

Miranda Lambert, a country artist, has a new song called "the house that built me". This is one of those songs that speaks to me. I'm sure that she watched me grow up and wrote that song about me. Go here and listen to it.

That house out in Bayou George really did build me. I still go out of the way to drive by it when I go home. I park a little way down the road and look at it. I feel like there are strangers in my house. I learned about life in that little brick home on Everest Street. And if you were wondering, I shed a tear writing this post.