Still Standing Where I Learned to Belong
There are songs that don’t just remind you — they return you.
“Dirt Cheap” by Cody Johnson does that to me. Every time I hear it, I’m back where it all started, standing in a place that shaped me long before I understood how big the world could be.
I see her first — a little girl with a bow in her hair, legs pumping on the swing out back. That was me, when the world was still too big for a five-year-old heart. I didn’t know much then, but I knew that yard was safe. I knew that house behind me would always be there when I jumped off and ran inside.
That house raised me in quiet, steady ways. It held scraped knees and bedtime prayers, muddy shoes by the door and voices calling me home before the porch light came on. It wasn’t perfect, but it was full — full of love, full of lessons, full of the kind of comfort you don’t realize is rare until you grow up and leave it behind.
As the years passed, I learned how quickly life moves. How places change hands. How memories can be packed into boxes and sold off like they never mattered. But some things shouldn’t be priced, and some homes shouldn’t be handed over to strangers.
That’s why being blessed enough to buy my parents’ house feels like more than a milestone — it feels like a calling. I didn’t just buy walls and land. I chose to protect the place where that little girl learned she belonged. I chose to keep the swing in the yard, the stories in the walls, and the door open for family, always.
“Dirt Cheap” says what my heart already knew — that the most valuable things in life don’t look like much to the world. They look like worn floors, familiar views, and a home that’s seen generations come and go but never stopped loving the people inside it.
Now, when I walk through that house, I carry gratitude with every step. Gratitude for my parents, for their sacrifices, for the love they poured into a place that poured it right back into me. Gratitude for the chance to keep it standing — not just as a house, but as a family home. Forever.
That little girl with the bow in her hair?
She still lives here.
She still belongs here.
And no matter how big the world gets, this place will always be proof that some things are worth more than they’ll ever sell for.
👨👩👦👦🎀😇🏡👑💖💎💪
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