An Open Letter to Fort Worth

June 30, 2016

Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth | The Rose Table

Dear Fort Worth,

I’m selling my home today and moving across the Metroplex. It was not an easy decision to leave you. I adore you so much! You have been so good to me over the past nine years. I couldn’t leave without a proper goodbye.

I was in elementary school the first time I saw Fort Worth. I remember thinking that downtown Fort Worth was reminiscent of Disneyland’s Main Street USA with its twinkly lights and horse-drawn carriages. It was so magical, so safe, and it had the biggest Barnes and Noble little me had ever laid eyes on.

I ended up in Fort Worth by following my brother to Texas Christian University. (I’m that sister.) The day we dropped him off at TCU was the worst day of my young life. We had always been the best of friends and I was devastated to drop him off at college. I sobbed the whole way driving back to my hometown of Rockwall. As soon as I got my license at age sixteen, my mom regularly let me drive my blue-purple mustang to Fort Worth to visit my brother at college.

TCU was the only college I applied to. Thank goodness they let me in! I planned to only stay two years before transferring to a university that offered German as a major but TCU opened the German major the very day that I went to orientation. I was told that I was the very first registered German major.

I had the best time at TCU. I spent nearly every weekend downtown or in the cultural district. As early as twenty years-old, I’d wake up early on Saturday mornings to shop local produce at Cowtown Farmer’s Market before spending time with my horses. After I turned twenty-one, I celebrated nearly every birthday at Scat Jazz Lounge.

After graduating from TCU, I bought my house in Fort Worth and fell into a career in public relations (that’s a story for another day). My former company’s Main Street office had me walking around downtown twice a day during my breaks. If there is a downtown in America that’s more charming than downtown Fort Worth, I haven’t seen it. I know downtown Fort Worth like the back of my hand.

Weekends were spent at Fort Worth Zoo, Bass Performance Hall, parks, Central Market, farm-to-table restaurants, festivals, and at the many museums Fort Worth has to offer. There’s so much culture in Fort Worth. It always startled me when Dallas residents talk about “Cowtown” as being full of BBQ and cattle. That’s never been my Fort Worth!

My Fort Worth is full of culture and history and a thriving farm-to-table scene. My Fort Worth is classy and elegant and the people here are so kind. My Fort Worth doesn’t try at all to impress; it’s just impressive.

I will miss you dearly, Fort Worth. I want you to know that. I really should have moved a year ago; my life is no longer there, but I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I know this won’t be the end. I will occasionally meet clients for lunch at my favorite Fort Worth restaurants, I will still take my niece to Fort Worth Zoo, and I absolutely plan on driving over for shows at Bass Performance Hall. But it won’t be the same as the nine wonderful years I spent with you.

Thank you for sharing your culture with me, Fort Worth. Thank you for being such a safe place for a twenty-something year-old woman to live alone. Thank you for supporting my love of the fine arts and farm fresh cuisine. Thank you for being the birthplace of my company and of The Rose Table. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms and for treating me so well these past nine years. You were exactly what I needed.

To my brother, sister-in-law, and niece, I can’t thank you enough for the wonderful memories in Fort Worth. You always let me be part of your nuclear family. It was a given that I would be included in pumpkin carving, park visits, and movie nights and I’m so grateful for that! What a fun decade it’s been. Out of everything I love about Fort Worth, I miss you three most of all.

Here are a few personal photos from my time in Fort Worth, which have nothing to do with The Rose Table but it’s my website and I’ll share them if I want to!