My heart belongs to a neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee. My family and I lived atop a hill in an ancient farmhouse. In the middle of the many acres my family called theirs, a humongous tree existed. The flowers that grew on that tree consisted of white petals with one red dot on each petal. My mom told me a story about those types of trees. She said the red dot on the petals represented the blood Jesus sacrificed on the cross for me.
At age seven I believed in God without a doubt. So, every night I would kneel down on my knees, in front of my bed, facing the window. From there, I could see the vast space that was my backyard. I could see the Jesus Tree. I remember the first thing I did when I prayed was thanked God for letting me still live. I was afraid of upsetting Him. I was terrified of going to hell.
When I got older it became my individual decision to believe or to not believe. I sat on a fence between the two for so long because I was afraid to say I didn’t believe but at the same time I wasn’t sure if I actually did. My parents did. Everyone else I knew did.
I wasn’t raised extremely religious, but my parents had always encouraged me to believe. Even though they always told me it was my life and I had to choose what I thought in my heart. I studied the people in my life who believed in God. They all had one thing in common: they all feared going to hell. But, it was more than that. It was almost as if they feared their God.
The way I see it is, you should never be afraid of the person or thing you worship. You should never fear the after-life if you’ve been a good person during your time on Earth. So, I decided I did believe in a higher power. I don’t fully believe science created the world. But, I also choose to believe whomever that higher power is, they will grant me with a good after-life if my morals are correct and if I’m a decent human. I believe in fate and destiny and the Universe. I believe our lives are like maps, already laid out so no matter what choices we make, we’re always headed to our end destination. I never want to live a life where I fear to make decisions my heart tells me to make.
The neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee holds a part of me that none of my other neighborhoods do. It holds the memory of seven-year old me releasing myself from fear of living. The seven-year old me learned not to be afraid and that’s where she lives. In Memphis, Tennessee.