Graham, Texas

In my last blog I gave a little bit of background about where I come form and how I grew up. I tell everyone that I am from Graham, Texas, A small town about an hour and a half west of Fort Worth. That is all true and I am proud of where I am from, but I haven’t always lived my life there. After I finished the fifth grade we moved from Lubbock, Texas to Graham and I wasn’t too excited about it.

I had spent most of my life in Lubbock, at least since I started school. We had family close and that’s where my mother had gone to school and all of my friends were there. My mother had always talked about moving out in the country somewhere where we could have our horses and she could get back into rodeo. I had always thought this was just talk and maybe something she would do when I left for college or when she retired, I had no idea that she was so serious about it. I think after my grandmother died, who lived in Lubbock, there was nothing really keeping my mother there anymore. We had a lake house at Possum Kingdom Lake, close to Graham, so we began looking for a house in that area. I was less than trilled during this whole process, I had always considered myself a city kid and really didn’t have any interest in living on a ranch with horses and participating in rodeos. However, my voted did not constitute a majority in this decision so I was out of Luck. My mother found a nice house in Graham, and we decided to move the summer after my fifth grade year.

It was a big adjustment moving from a college town of nearly 250,000 to Graham with a population barely over 8,000. I thought I was trapped in the middle of nowhere with nothing exciting to do. I didn’t like living on a ranch and I didn’t like all the work that came with it. I started the sixth grade that fall and began making friends easy enough, and to my surprise these people were pretty normal. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, especially since my graduating class was less than half of what mine was in Lubbock. It became apparent that I would know everyone in my class, and most of the people in the classes above and below me. As my school years progressed I formed many close relationships with these people. There is nothing quite like going to school in a small town. It forces you to be close to a lot of people, and more than anything it makes you appreciate the small things in life. In Graham there wasn’t a whole lot to do except hang out with people, which is what I spend a lot of my time doing. Going to school in Graham also allowed me to do many things, such as play multiple sports, be involved in many club and organizations, and participate in the theatere program. There weren’t any cliques in Graham because everyone knew everyone and everyone interacted.

Looking back I can’t imagine growing up any better way. I had so many experiences that I wouldn’t have been able to have living in a big city. There is just something about small town life that is classic Americana. Sometimes I feel as if I grew up in one of those movies you see about how life used to be, and I think that’s awesome. I also made many close friends in Graham and plan to have those friends for the rest of my life. Living in a small town forges stronger bonds between people, because that’s all you have, and honestly it’s the same people you see all the time. While I am excited to be at TCU and in Fort Worth I love going back to Graham, and I’m proud to be able to call it home.