Sunday Morning Rituals

March 2018 - Gonzales, Texas

I never thought I had "culture." I always found myself on the outside peering in to everyone else's lives in a faraway land believing that they were so cool and different. I couldn't possibly fit into that category. What was so special about me and the way that I was brought up? It was a way of life where I'm from, nothing new. As kids we always crave the grass where its greener, until maybe just one day, we learn to appreciate our own.

As I became an adult and left the bubble of a small town I had always known, I realized, not everyone had the same experiences as me. That is probably one of the biggest culture shocks of college, being opened up and shoved into a room full of different. It's a beautiful thing, but scary at first. It rocks the boat filled with everything you've once known and makes you question your upbringing, your beliefs and rituals, even yourself. It makes you question so much, that maybe you even lose your way- for a moment, for a few years, and maybe, just maybe, you find her again. It is when you find her again that you travel back to your roots and you kiss the ground that they shot up from. Then it hits you, that in fact, these simple, boring rituals like working cattle on sunday with your dad are actually so unique and special, and make up you, and your own culture. This is my culture. This is what makes me, me.