I'm goin' to Jackson...

Thank you, Johnny Cash, for inspiring my blog post today. What a coincidence... Four years ago today we officially moved to Jackson. It was a hot, steamy June day and we packed up redneck-style with trucks and trailers and hit the road. Stuff was flying out of the truckbeds all along I-20, and people were staring at us as we stopped on the shoulder to re-secure everything. It was chaos. I can promise you it was the last time we will ever ever ever move like that again.

We had been married a little less than a year when I got a job here (I actually started the day after our first anniversary), so I did the 45-minute commute from Vicksburg for three months before we moved. Then Derek did it for three months after we moved until he found a job over here. We needed a change, and to us, Jackson was a good plan.

It was much bigger, offered more options, had an airport (as small as it is, it's still "international" - Ha!), had more things to do, etc. If we wanted to stay in Mississippi, this would be it for us. It's a good mid-point location between our two families, too. Don't get me wrong, we caught plenty of slack from family and friends about moving to the "big city" with all its crime, but we did it anyways. And we felt like if we were going to move here, we wanted to live inside the city, not in the suburbs. It was a risk we were willing to take. We've had a few scuffles with crime, but we've dealt with it. And we're still here.

We've made lots of new friends, met the best neighbors anyone could hope to have, found jobs we love, become "regulars" at great new places to hang out right down the road, tried lots of new restaurants, and just enjoyed ourselves overall.

This was a really smart move for us. I realize it's not right for everyone, but different strokes for different folks. I can't believe it's been four years, and we still love it (most days, anyway). Of course there are things I would change about it, but overall the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I love being in a bigger city; I love all the history; I love the old, tree-lined neighborhoods; I love the character of this city, even with all its flaws.

No place is perfect, but Jackson is perfect for us.