I Bleed Confederacy

As I am only 21 now and I moved out of the south when I was 20, it was brought to my attention that when I reach age 41, I will officially be considered a Yankee because I will have lived here up north of the Mason Dixon longer than I have below it.... While this trampled on a nerve like a stampede of cattle, momentarily, I realized, being Southern is just like being country. It doesn't matter where you live, what you own, or what kind of truck you have its about how you live and what you were born into.

So even if I'm still around in Yankee state in 20 years, I'll still be a southerner, I'll still visit the south, I'll still be southern bred and born with a heart that bleeds miniature Confederate flag teardrops. Not to mention I don't think this thick southern accent of mine is going anywhere....Besides I have plans to retire back to the Ozarks on my family's land in Arkansas... Years in retirement will overtake the years spent up north once again.... (Ridiculous, but I can't help but defend my person as I am, a Southern Belle.)

I will always live my life like a southerner, I will always be one-click behind in some ways. I'll always cook like a southerner, with crockpots and casseroles. I'll always envelop in the sunlight, I'll always uses great grandmama's recipe for snicker-doodles and home-made blueberry ice cream. I'll always use my southern inherited secrets for removing stains, shining my floors and creating the smell of Christmas in July.

I will always have that southern respect for God, freedom and prayer. I'll always carry my southern pride like an arrogant, female, southern bitch, because I was raised with a strong southern value to believe in who you are and to wave your flag of pride like its the end of the millennial. I earned my redneck-right-of-passage in the south and I will always defend it.

My children may very well be Yankee born, but they will be taught the same Southern values I was taught. There's a good chance they may even have a twang like I do. Sure they'll be half-bloods, but you can't flood out the southern, you can't. We may have lost the war but we have a culture and lifestyle that is respected and strived after by not only the northern US but by those in other countries. We southerners may be a bunch of losers, but you never hear of people retiring and moving up north. Up north is where the jobs and economy are for those young in flesh. But the south, will always be the south, it will always have that slow, sweet , southern way of life. I will always miss that way of life until I return to it.

My family heritage goes back as far as 1819 when Arkansas was part of the Louisiana Purchase and was deemed a separate territory. That heritage follows Arkansas reaching statehood in 1836 and even as far as the state becoming the ninth state to succeed from the Union as a slave state and becoming part of the Confederacy. I am in fact the first female born to my family's name in the entire existence of Arkansan statehood. So you best believe “you can take the girl out of the south but you cannot take the south out of the girl.”