The time is right
I'm gonna pack my bags
And take that journey down the road
Cuz over the mountain I the bright sunshine
And I want to live inside the glow
I wanna go to a place where I am nothing and everything
That exists between here and nowhere
I wanna go to a place where time has no consequence at all yeah
The sky opens to my prayers
I wanna go to beautiful beautiful...beautiful beautiful
I wanna go to beautiful beautiful...beautiful beautiful
I wanna go to beautiful
Please understand that it's not that I don't care
But right now these walls are closing in on me
I love you more than I love life itself

But I need to find a place where I can breathe
I wanna go to a place where I can hold the intangible
and let go of the pain with all my might
I wanna go to a place where I'm suspended in ecstacy
somewhere between dark and light, where wrong becomes right
I wanna go to beautiful beautiful...beautiful beautiful
I wanna go to beautiful beautifl...beautiful beautiful
I wanna go to beautiful.
Beautiful.

India Arie

Understand

I am a person from a bigger picture.
What picture?
The one that was drawn before I was even contemplated.
A picture that has been etched into our skulls about white pickett fences, 2 1/2 kids and minivans.

But understand...

Where was I when the declaration of independence was written?
No one asked how I felt about people that I dont know and never knew deciding my rights.
Who gave them the right?
Where was I when someone decided that being normal is a house, a spouse, a dog named Buddy and 2 1/2 kids?
What is normal?
Soccer practce and living through your children...
Or working 100 hours a week at minimum wage to support 1 kid with no spouse and no house.
Just an apartment and only the rat in your tup to call Buddy?
Where's their white pickett fence?

But understand...

We have been brought up to think the white pickett fence is what to strive for...
When in reality we win because we know that white paint chips and wood weathers,
But being you and understanding is what to really strive for.
But understand them...
It's all they understand.

Brandi

Texas

When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like, "Do you have any cows?" "Do you have horses?" "Bet you got a bunch of guns, eh?" They all want to know if you've been to Southfork. They watched Dallas. Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas. Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you? In every man, woman and child on this planet , there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride in a pickup. There is some bit of Texas in everyone. Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Iowa? Cool, tell me about it?" Do you know why? Because there's no place like Texas. Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for the cause of freedom. We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and Crockett and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes. John Wayne paid to do the movie himself. That is the Spirit of Texas. Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Ana at San Jacinto. Texas is Juneteenth and Texas Independence Day. Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest. Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend. Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country. Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas and Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas. Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork. Texas is Mexican food like nowhere else, not even Mexico. Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall, and the Astrodome. Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey, Sam Rayburn,and Lyndon B. Johnson. Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, SBC ,Texas Instruments and Compaq. Texas is NASA. Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops. Texas is skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer. Texas is a place where cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and NIOSA River Parade in San Antonio. Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities. If it isn't in Texas, you don't need it. No one does anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas. By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, California, or Maine and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet. Do you know why? Because we place being a Texan as high as being an American down here. (it is the only state that was a republic before it became a state, that is the reason I was taught). Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D.C. and we can divide our state into five states if we want to! We included these things as part of the deal when we came on. That's the best part right there.

"The road goes on forever and the party never ends..."
Dedicated to everyone that's proud to be a Texan...
This was sent to me by a good friend of mine (which I never thought I'd say about an Aggie of all people) Thanks :-)