Alice is Begging A Hometown Question

 I'm from a small town. I know my parents neighbors and if I removed the "STOP OBAMA - SAY NO TO SOCIALISM" sign from their yard, they would totally know it was me.  So I leave it there and the rest of the town loves it and wants to know where they can get one, too. I'm from that kind of small town. So sad but oh-so-true.

Going to the Old Town Tavern or the newly renovated Shade's (where my 76 year old grandmother was the very first cook in the kitchen oh so many years ago) is like going to a high school reunion with 4 graduating classes before and after me.  We got drunk together then and we get drunk together now. Yeah.

Anyway, it was a small town and my parents bought a house there when I was 3-ish - right in the middle of downtown, too - if 2 streets and 13 houses counts as a downtown.  My graduating class consisted of 139 graduates, the largest there ever was. I'm friends with (probably) each and every one of those 139 graduates on Facebook. I guess Facebook is a small town, too?

The town  has a WalMart now - so not so small anymore.

When I met The X, who owned a coffee shop in said small town, we moved to the big city - Columbus, Ohio. I was then, and may be forever, a big (ish) city girl. I see the advantages to the city life. You find your neighborhood - your local spots and within that city becomes your very own - wait for it - small town.

I frequented the same bars every night, I worked in the local restaurants, I got soup-nazi'd from the local dry-cleaners. I walked the brick streets night after night with my tiny little dog that all the locals knew by  name. The Starbucks had my 'iced quadruple non-fat sugar free caramel macchiato' made before I even ordered it.  I loved my small town big city where everyone knew my name and no one really knew me at all.

But back to where I grew up. I'm not sure I realized how much I missed that tiny country town until I recently moved to Colorado Springs. Which is a fairly medium sized city with a very small town feel.

I find myself constantly comparing it to where I grew up and to Columbus, where I lived for the past 8 years. I miss seeing someone I know almost everywhere I go. I miss the 20 minute drive to my parents house that I made (probably) way too often. I miss my parents and my brothers and my friends. I miss knowing my way around and being able to give directions to anywhere within a 40 mile radius. I miss the international airport - not that I travel internationally but the option is nice, anyhow.

I don't miss the Midwest weather. I don't miss the ridiculous football fans and I don't miss the "STOP OBAMA" signs. I don't miss having nowhere new to discover.  

Being in a new city suits me just fine and I can chat up and make friends with anyone. Really, anyone. And I'm really not so bad with directions and I'm getting around without getting lost. I believe that as life starts to become more and more familiar I will miss Ohio less. I wonder if I romanticize my life in Ohio because I haven't yet settled in here or if I will always have the feeling that Ohio is my only real 'home'. 

I'm searching for little pearls of wisdom from those of you who have moved away from 'home' and haven't been back. When did you leave and why? What did or do you miss? And mostly, does your current city feel more like home now than your hometown did?

 

Comments

[Mia]

Oh man, well. The first time I left the island - Puerto Rico - was when I was 18 (visiting the states doesn't count since it was only for a few weeks). It was for college, so I not only had to deal with being on my own but of the culture shock. Then in my 3rd year I decided I wanted to have more culture shock and moved to Scotland for a year. Then back to DC then NY then back to PR (because my grandma was dying and I left to be with her and escape my out of sync life in NY) then back to NY (because I got into an MFA program)- where I still live. :)

Each time I felt out of place, different, out of my element, until I slowly met people and remembered that I need to turn left after I get out of the subway and not right if wanted to get to my apt without looking lost, etc. i guess a new city is like a new pair of shoes or pants. At first it bunches a little and your toes hurt, but after a while your butt starts looking nice and you find that your foot has made a permanent imprint inside the shoe.

I consider each of these places 'home' and love and hate them for different reasons. Puerto Rico is kind of a place to escape and be with my family with no worries (aside from family dramas) and NY is holds my work and career (two very different things)and my independence. Scotland holds my fond memories and many men in kilts... :)

[Kit]

I left my hometown for college 17 years ago and except for a few summers never looked back. I don't miss it one bit. Sometimes I think I do miss a few bits - this or that hill, an ice cream shop I liked, or the weirdly dry acrid sauce at the local pizza place - but I soon realize that what I miss about those things is my childhood. Why go back now and ruin those memories? My family's all moved away, several of my once closest friends have also moved to NYC, or otherwise away from home; and a few years into being here I began to feel like a true Brooklynite, savoring my hood and lamenting, with the people who were here before me, the arrival of the younger or richer people that came after me. Through habit you will find your place, and your new burg will soon fit you like that pair of sandals which conformed over time to your unique arches and toeprints.

[Alice]

Both of you likened fitting into your new home towns to wearing in a pair of shoes.... figures - I usually go barefoot

[The Dol]

@Mia, I need for my butt to look good in a pair of pants again. Thank you, Jillian Michaels, for the 30-Day Shred. I think I am on Day 45, and my arms look better. I probably should stop eating those little donuts. That might help.

@Alice, I have to write a post about this, too. I come from a small town, too--114 graduates in my class. Boo-yah! I went from the middle of nowhere in New Mexico to Southern California. I didn't know anyone and I was wearing glasses that were less than flattering.

It was rough.

I recommend working out some way for a good friend to become marooned in the same town as you. I hit the jackpot when Polly ended up out here (ok, I may have done some cajoling, too), and now, about 15 years later, I love it. Ok, I loved it probably 10 minutes after Polly got here and we started going out every weekend.

I miss my hometown, which was possibly more beautiful to me than San Diego (and that's saying something!) but had fewer human beings and places to buy good vegetarian food. I couldn't live there again, but I do miss it.

[a (now) small town girl]

You could have it the other way. You COULD have grown up in a bigger town and then ended up living in a smaller (no Walmart, even) town. And you might have even tried to make friends with smaller town people only to have them look at you funny because you aren't wearing your pajama pants in public. And you might have asked your husband about it, only to have him reply, "People move here because they don't like people. They don't want you (or anyone) to be your friend." Just sayin'...

[Pandora]

There were approximately 190 kids in my graduating glass. Go Bullfrogs!! But, as beautiful as my small hometown in the Sierra Nevada foothills is, I needed to get the heck out of there. My youthful self needs constant 70 degree weather and 24/7 taquerias to survive. So, hellllllo San Diego.

I really don't want to brag, but I'm going to: My hometown is probably the cutest little thing you'll ever see. Pretty sure we've been on the list of "Top 10 Best Small Towns in America" for a decent while. Plus, I grew up with redwoods in my backyard with black bears climbing them- no lie. Not many kids can say that black bears have ripped off their outside freezer door in order to reach the smoked salmon.

However, I have a feeling that my heart is going to remain with San Diego for a long time. I've been spoiled by having suntans in February and a Target three exits down the freeway. Not to mention, I have the Dol and Polly nearby.

[Danielle]

I grew up in a small town that happens to be an island paradise. I lived in key largo my whole childhood, most of it in the same house. We eventually got a kmart, but that's as big as we got. We drove to Miami a few times a week (the minute we turned 16) to go to the mall or movie theater.

I thought I hated growing up there and applied to colleges in Boston, exclusively. I do think I'm more of a "city" person, but I haven't been back to key largo since I was married there five years ago. Both of my parents left, most of my former classmates (I think we graduated around 120) who still live there are people I didn't like much in high school. And my best friend and her husband, whom I have known since the fifth and third grades respectively, now live in Seattle as well.

I miss being in closer proximity to my family, I miss being able to call them when I think about it, and not just when it is a reasonable hour where they live. I miss the food from home, some of the places we uses to go, but they aren't the same any more. The keys have gotten more and more developed since I left, I'd have to stay at a hotel if I visited (and I worked in those hotels growing up, I know what goes on there) and an impending natural disaster (the oil spill) may actually ruin some of the best things about my hometown forever.

But I'm finally loving living in Seattle after six years, I've got great friends here, the city is the best place in the world when it is sunny out, and still fairly decent when it isn't. Sure, we don't get fresh snapper everyday, and I don't know everyone in town. But I can go to the movies whenever I feel like it. Going to a play is not a huge production (sorry, couldn't help myself), and I'm building my own little family here in my new home.

[Alice]

@a (now) small town girl - you have a great point there. At least I understand people from the country and trust me - MOST of the time I just want people to leave me the F alone.

@Danielle - I bet that was a beautiful place to grow up! I'm sure you were excited to get out but once you got to Boston didn't you miss the weather???

[Meg]

Hi, I moved to NYC from Wisconsin/Minnesota over six years ago and Wisconsin is still the first thing I tell people about. I only see my family every six months, but talk to my parents alot and miss my house and the animals and the land surrounding it terribly. To me, Wisconsin defines who I am: quirky, Midwestern, tough, funny and probably drinks a little too much.

But, at the same time, I'd never leave New York. It's the only place I ever felt like I belonged, and I craved anonymity after leaving a judgmental small town. Living here was definitely tough at first--I only had two friends the first six months I lived here, so not much of a social calendar--but now, I find myself inviting over 100 "close friends" to my birthday party.

It's odd to me, though, how much COMMUNITY I have here. I have two favorite bars where the guys working there know my name and those of my friends. I had a grocer shake my hand and bode me a sad farewell when I told him I had to move out of the neighborhood. I went to a baseball game with the grocer's son who worked at the bodega every afternoon and who I brought two Thanksgiving dinners to. The coffee cart guy near my office gives me free muffins because he thinks I'm too skinny. I go places in New York City and see people I know randomly, from a variety of situations--and just the other day I realized that pretty soon, I'll have lived here longer than I did in the house my dad built for us that I love more than any other material thing ever.

So, in short, I think you can have both. The memories that are important to you that make you who you are, and the present place you're living in that will shape who you will be. I also love the shoe metaphor that someone else came up with--eventually, you'll find yourself giving directions like the local and having the barista know your coffee order, no matter how big or small the city you live in is.

But it's nice for me to know that other people struggle with this and think about it as much as I do. I hope that brings you as much comfort as this post did for me.

[Polly]

For a long time, going back to Rhode Island was "going home." But then one day when the plane touched down in RI and I looked around, the landscape looked entirely foreign. I was suddenly a tourist in my own hometown.

I like recognizing people in that vague I-shop-here-often kind of way. I like seeing people I know in traffic. I like running into acquaintances in restaurants. I like not knowing them too personally.

[Finch]

man this question seems to be quite appealing. personally have trade one small town for another. very different in why they are small. the first is the tourist driven near Pandora's redwoods and bears and the second is a college town place in the middle wheat fields. quite honestly being home for short period of time is already making it start to not feel like home. yeah i my hands could still probably drive the windy roads with out eyes but it is strange. i hard to explain i guess i have moved on, changed my happy place. And even though there isn't anything to do in the college town it seems so much larger. it is quite odd how what you find most comfortable shifts as you send more time in one space or another and how one somewhat easily makes that transition.

[Chance]

Not trying to one up anyone but my graduating class was 52. And looking back I think I made out with at one time or another 15% of them. The house I grew up in was "surrounded" by farms with about one neighbor every half mile or so. And before I could drive "parking" with a girl was a blanket in an apple orchard. I have lived in a lot of other places and now have spent more of my life away from the house where it was miles to the closest store, and you could see more stars in one inch of sky, then you would see people in a year. But as far as home, I moved to Seattle because all of my family, one by one, moved here. While I don't feel home in the place that I live, I do feel it every time we get together.
Wisconsin is a wonderful place to grow up, as time moves slower, and the people do as well. But not just because of the deep fried breaded cheese, and gallons of beer. It was a different way of life because kids didn't have designer clothes, B.M.W's, or naked pictures of each other on their phones. Friday nights was cruising the "loop" of town waiting to find out which section of woods the party would be at. Then would come the inevitable running through the woods to get away from the cops. And before alice asks, no this was not the 1950's...but there was no Internet when I was in high school. While Sturgeon Bay is a great place to grow up, it is not a great place to find variety in the gene pool. So to me home is wherever my family lives.
P.S. Meg...your not the meg that taught me that they are not radio dials are you? Cause that would be weird...

[Diosa]

I've only ever lived in RI, but I've lived all over the state. It feels less like I've changed my hometown than just expanded it.

[Meg]

Hi Chance, I don't think so. But I do know a lot of random information about radio, so one never knows.