Texas Suburban Living
How did a young girl raised in the deep south in a small four-square mile town get to Waxahachie, TX? Let me tell you; it’s a story my husband and I still can’t agree on, like our dating story that led to marriage. You know how there is a ‘his’ version, ‘her’ version and somewhere in between the ‘truth’…? That’s what we’ve resolved these stories to be. So today, tune in for my version, which you all know is the TRUTH! Y’all ready?
We had been on a search for our forever home since 2008. We had agreed before marriage, we would live in Demea’s bachelor pad <strong side-eye> for at least a year after marriage and would then start our search. Who knew that search would take stam near ten years? I’ll tell you for sure, not me! We had visited several communities in the Burleson area, where we resided, and neighboring cities, but just couldn’t land on one. We’d find the perfect builder, but the community wasn’t a good fit, or the lots were just too small. Or we’d find the perfect location, but the floor plans just wasn’t what we, or rather I, envisioned. When searching for our forever home, even before having kids, I knew it had to have these six things:
Siloed Master (or is that word too slavery riddled?) bedroom
Two bedrooms connected by a Jack N Jill bathroom
A total of five bedrooms to accomodate my massive family who doesn’t believe in hotel rooms
A home office: I already claimed I would be a remote worker then
A minimum of 1 acre lot
A good school district with a diverse population
Hey, five out of my six isn’t bad. I learned during these searches that finding a suburban neighborhood where I wanted to live in Texas, with a diverse school district, was like playing the lottery. It was a one in several million chance. Something was going to have to give on my wish list, but back to how we got here.
My bestie had been raving about this community a friend had told her about in Waxahachie, TX. She wanted to go see the properties and find out if they matched the hyped up description her co-worker had given. I was game for a ride to get out of the house and just spend some quality time with her. And so, our excursion began. Notice I said excursion, because from both our current residences, we were in for a one-hour commute to this new development she thought so highly of. I made it very clear during our long-winded conversation enroute, “I ain’t moving to no got damn Waxahachie”.
“A one-hour commute to and from work, you must be out your rabid ass mind?” Yes, that’s how I talk; those terms were coined by our “country” family back home. If you’ve never heard of them, there are plenty more where that came from. Anywho, we pulled up to the model home and I’m like, “it’s cute”. We go in and it’s my forever home floor plan! Like, it had everything on my wish list and then more. The sales associate gave her pitch of what is included in their base accommodations and what are the upgrades. In this conversation, she was winning me over, but I still had on my game face. You can’t let your right hand know what your left hand doing, or whatever Moaw (my grandmother) said. We took a drive around the neighborhood and I wasn’t impressed. It was the neighboring properties that made me pause. I questioned if the eye sore could be overlooked, because I was having a hard time doing so. Little did I know it was a set-up. The bestie wanted to really gauge my interest in the floor plan, she already knew the neighborhood with the model home that would most suite me, wasn’t the one she’d want us to live in. So off to the next neighborhood and model home we go.
BABY! When I tell you she didn’t have to say nothing else. As soon as we pulled into the neighborhood I knew; WE were home. It was beautiful. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was serene. It was DIVERSE! We saw people that looked like us, as she casually drove through the community before going to visit the model home. That was just for kicks and giggles, because that home was too small, the floorpan and elevation wouldn’t fit either of our lifestyles, but this neighborhood was HOME! The entire commute home, we talked about how we’d finally be a true Village. We’d be near one another to be helpful when needed. See, I was the only person so far in my Village with kids. Well, I take that back. This friend had fur babies. She’d always say they were my godchildren and would introduce me to others as their aunt. Even after walking into her home countless times and screaming, “get y’all ass on”, she would still say I was their godparent. But traveling 45 minutes to an hour between our homes was frustrating, taxing and sometimes overwhelming. There just had to be a better way to be a functional Village, like the one we were raised in. And we had finally found that place, the Village. Funny, we started calling it that before any of us signed any paperwork.
So as you can see, my bestie and I were locked and loaded. We just needed to coerce the Misters in our lives to be as gung-ho about the community, commute time and price point as we were. Coercing my husband was a huge undertaking. I thought I had one advantage in my favor, he’d have a shorter commute to work. It wasn’t, it would be the same distance for him and now an even longer one for me. Strike one!
I was committed to finding a vantage point to get him on my side. I stopped talking about all the things that I thought were right and asked him to do one simple thing. I asked him to get with the other Mister and go out and visit both communities and model homes. So, they set out and did just that. Here is where the story splits in versions. My Mister says he wasn’t excited after his first visit to the property, and I call bullshit! He came home and he had the same excitement about the floor plan that I had. We literally sat and looked through floorpans and open lots that night. We discussed our likes and dislikes of the different communities, floor plans, lots, and what we’d want to customize. So tell me how he wasn’t as excited as I was after my first time visiting the Village? According to him, I basically dragged him along kicking and screaming, but I recall a different version of the truth.
Granted, we talked for months before pulling the trigger. We had a few other things to consider. The most important one was that we were adding to our family and the neighborhood needed to be what we wanted for our kids. Though we had seen diversity in the neighborhood on our first visit, we needed to know what the vibe was in the community. The Burleson community, we lived in just wasn’t that friendly. Though we had some neighbors we were cordial with, we just never felt fully connected in this neighborhood. During Halloween, I always felt like we were walking up to strangers’ doors instead of friendly neighbors. We just didn’t engage and talk to one another. So, we started visiting the community we wanted to live in on holidays before we pulled the trigger. We liked what we saw in terms of community engagement. We met neighbors that shared that they too had moved into the Waxahachie neighborhood as a package deal. In this deal, three families that were close opted to co-locate to the new neighborhood so that their kids could be raised together. This was sounding like our vision for our Village.
Another thing that needed to be discussed was the school district. In my exhaustive research, my sons would definitely not be in an as diverse environment as I had hoped. But honestly, that would have been their experience in almost all the suburban neighborhoods where we would potentially move. We had identified in our almost ten year search for our forever home, that we were either going to move into a diverse neighborhood with a diverse school demographic and pay for private school or deal with the yearly hassle of winning the lottery for them to be in a preferred charter school OR, we would move into a school district or neighborhood that wasn’t as diverse and not pay for private school or deal with school lottery system.
Private school, as I expressed last week, had already been plaguing our household with questions of identity and self awareness. So, I much preferred a diverse neighborhood in a good school district, and we we could figure out additional ways to keep our sons grounded in their Blackness. This was another semi-win on our checklist. Waxahachie ISD had great rating for school scores, our neighborhood was diverse, but the demographic was less than 10% Black no matter the school in the district they would attend. However, there were other alternatives that I identified, in DeSoto ISD, which was minutes away, and they were building a new magnet STEM school that my son had a high likelihood of getting into.
The last thing we needed to be aligned was our Village. We had decided this move would be for our family, if and only if, (if you’re a Computer Science major, you picked up that programming syntax), our Village would be moving to Waxahachie as well. It wasn’t just that one bestie that was already committed. I had two more Village members that I needed to get on board. One was an easy sell, she loved the vision, she found the perfect lot in which the sun would rise and set to give her the perfect amount of sunlight, and she was fine with the one-acre lot minimum in the community. So, that left one more bestie to convince and she was more work than my Mister. See, she didn’t want a large lot, she wanted more of a starter home.
Let me tell you how God will direct your path and confirm this is his favor for you. We three went ahead with getting under contract for our lots and floor plans for our homes and rested and prayed that the right neighborhood would avail itself for the last remaining Village member. While we were picking out our finishings for our home, we had selected a gray wall color that gave the representative reason to pause. She paused because many couples before us had selected that color but then disliked it because it gave off a bluer undertone than gray. She advised us to go look at the color in another model home in Waxahachie that was three miles from our community. As soon as we pulled up, I claimed this neighborhood for the our remaining Village member. I called her after viewing the model and told her that I found her community and her floorpan and asked when she’d like to go see it herself. LOL. And like I said, God’s favor. She visited, loved it just as I thought, and she’s now three miles from us in her own community that fits her needs.
This move to the suburbs in Waxahachie was authorized by God. Everything aligned… well we had one hiccup. One of the village members had to pull out due to a job relocation, so either way she was going to be a long-distance Village member. But the three of us that live in Waxahachie, are all co-located in this small town within minutes of one another. We have supported each other through sickness, death, dedications, birthdays and celebrations, and all other life events. So in a nutshell the things that helped us confirm Waxahachie was the right move for our family, are also the ones that support why we love Waxahachie.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things I would change, like having more sit-down, family friendly restaurants. Can we get a Five Guys, Torchy’s Tacos, Cheesecake Factory, Gloria’s, Mariano’s Hacienda, Texas Roadhouse, Jason’s Deli, BJ’s Brewhouse, or a host of other restaurants that are more aligned to my palette? Can we get an updated Urban Air? I mean it’s definitely time for a huge renovation there. I believe we have a new movie theatre, though I have never been. COVID just never allowed me to go out to the theatre and when we were going to the movies, it would be in an area that had a restaurant more akin to what I wanted before or afterwards. So, it can definitely grow.
But we have H-E-B, which was a MUST for any place we moved. If it didn’t have H-E-B, pack it up cause the peasantry of it all. LOL. It has some great neighboring Black Owned jewels that we’ve found. Ya’ll stay tuned to my reels and stories because as soon as this optimal weight is hit, I will be taking y’all on the journey with me. It won’t be every day or every week, possibly once a month, but I gotta share these places and spaces so y’all can come on out and taste them too.
Being Black in suburbia is really like being Black in corporate America. We are here in large numbers but when you look at the overall demographic, we are a very small percentage of the make-up. Everyone is surface level nice and some are genuinely nice and engaged. But there are some that have their biases and we just ain’t going to change them. And I ain’t going to waste my energy trying to, but I will call their asses out at every turn when they show their bias, ignorance, and ass in a space I’m present and accounted for in. I mean Mister loves the neighborhood so much, he’s the HOA President. Let’s talk about devotion to the community I dragged him to, kicking and screaming.
I want to hear from other Blacks in suburban communities. How was your transition to your current neighborhood and what do you love or dislike about it. Let’s chat and help each other out. And don’t forget to follow me @theHBCUmom and if you’re a Black mom in Waxahachie, join my Facebook group Black Moms of Waxahachie. I want to start engaging with you about schools, community and being an impact in our current community.
