There’s a line in the song Miles and Miles of Texas popularized by Asleep at the Wheel that goes something like this: I looked into her deep blue (or brown) eyes, and this is what I saw: I saw miles and miles of Texas.
As someone who grew up listening to this song, I have always claimed that this is the greatest compliment I could get, but lately I’ve started to think more about that.
If that’s what you see when you look into my eyes, then you’re seeing all of me.
You’re seeing my favorite places: the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, hiking trails in Bastrop State Park, Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels and the house of my adoptive grandparents, where I learned to make fried chicken and where my brother went hunting for the first time.
You’re seeing where I am the happiest: my dance studio in San Marcos; our local pool, where I spent half my summers; the Cabela’s by the water tower in Buda that I used to beg my parents to take me to when I was about 5.
You’re seeing my home: the kitchen where we made cookies with our mom and where she danced with me before bed. You’re seeing the old mulberry tree down the street where we would stuff our faces with berries every summer and the backyard where my brother and I played every day.
You’re seeing what makes me me.
But I have been criticized for saying I’m from Texas because I have lived more of my life outside of Texas at this point.
That always stings a bit. Because they weren’t there when my dad got off the phone with his boss and told us that we were being transferred. They don’t know how it felt when I was being torn away from everything I knew and loved—my miles and miles of Texas.
And now I come back every chance I get.
The memories I made in Texas I will cherish forever. The feeling of being home is something I will miss whenever I’m not in Texas.
The second I cross back over that border, I get the silliest grin on my face and my eyes shine just a little bit more just knowing I’m home again. I will forever refuse to call anywhere else home.
So if someone were to look into my eyes and see miles and miles of Texas, they would be seeing me in a way very few people do. They would be seeing me for exactly who I am. For what makes me me is Texas.
