SF
In California, people look at me funny when I mention the idea that my skin changes color with the seasons. Seems like the seasons aren't really a thing out here, at least not in the way that I'm used to. Sure, multiple people have told me that when Christmastime ("winter") rolls around, I'll see just how festive San Francisco can get, but that doesn't really mean too much to me when I think about it. I've been to New York in December, and Washington D.C. in time for the cherry blossom festival, and so the importance of decoration in celebration of specific times of year isn't lost on me. But when I think of the seasons, I think of different aspects of them than the holidays that surround them. I think about having to specifically put away certain types of clothing and knowing that each year in my high school I could predictably dread going in certain months because it would be unbearably hot and there wasn't any air conditioning.
The other day I went to the mall with my aunt and two of my youngest cousins, and as we sat together and I ate a cheap chicken parm from Sbarro (or whatever equivalent it was) she asked me what exactly did I miss most about Maryland. I was kind of at a loss at the question--what are the things that I miss about Maryland? Obviously I miss the people that I left behind, but that's kind of a cop out of an answer, isn't it? I certainly don't miss the humid summers and the freezing winters and the easily definable difference in climate. I talk about the fact that the city of Baltimore felt so segregated often enough and with enough disdain when people ask me about living on the east coast that that can't possibly be something that I miss. And I like the fact that not all the same chain restaurants exist out here. Although I've been to Starbucks enough times to make me feel like I'm back living at college. I guess I've been spending so much time trying to get to know this new place that I haven't even given myself a chance to miss home.
But when I stop to think about it, I can come up with a list of things I miss about my home state:
I miss being at my house in the springtime when the cherry blossom tree in my front yard would be so full of pink flowers that I couldn't see out my bedroom window and my front porch would look like it was lost in a pink blizzard
I miss being able to sit on the couch in my living room, watching TV and eating Kraft macaroni and cheese with tuna out of a big plastic mixing bowl
I miss my senior year at Loyola, when I could come home from class and my roommates and PJ would all be sitting around our dining room table coloring in one of our many coloring books with colored pencils that we kept in this old tupperware container
I miss my dogs, and I miss driving to the beach with Juliet
But when I really stop and think about it, what I miss about Maryland is a list of experiential things--it isn't that I miss the state and the east coast and how different it was and all that I'm used to, I miss people, and things that happened to me. I don't miss things that can be recreated simply by getting on a plane and going home. I miss certain rooms in the house where I grew up and I miss being in college and getting into the routine of going to the library to return old books and get new ones but these things aren't created by a place. They're created by an experience living in a place. I talk badly about home kind of often--for whatever reason it seems like the thing I feel most compelled to convey when I talk to west coasters about the east coast is that it's different in a way that is negative. I tell people there isn't anything going on at home, but deep down I think I know that's not true. I think what it all boils down to is that for now, I've outgrown Maryland. And that in the next few years of my life, I need to explore different places so I can form more experiences.
The other day at work, I met a guy who had come to write a screenplay and eat Totchos in the middle of the night, and he told me about how a year or so in San Francisco had turned into, for him, a decade. He told me he was still searching for a place that really truly felt like home, that made him unquestionably feel like he was in a place that gave him a sense of community regardless of what people he surrounded himself with. We're all searching for that though, aren't we? At least that's what I told him. When I studied abroad in Cape Town, I remember flying back from being on safari with my mom and our family friend, and feeling a sense of utter relief, that was physically palpable, when I saw the outlines of Table Mountain and Lion's Head against the backdrop of the ocean; it meant that I was back to a place that after only two and a half months felt like home. In five months of living there, I can confidently say that Cape Town grabbed ahold of me in a way I never expected. But at the end of the day, it is only a city. It's a place with flaws like anywhere else; while living there, I was simply in the frame of mind to accept it as closer to home than the town where I grew up.
My mom and I have had a couple of long phone conversations lately, and she's reminded me in several different ways of the real reasons I came out to try things in San Francisco. In particular, she reminded me yesterday that this was a big change not just because of the geographical distance, but because I've knowingly changed every facet of my life. I moved away from my relationship, I'm not in school for the first time in my life, and I've forced myself to grow up in a way that feels all to normal and all too strange at the same time.
It's been helpful to talk to someone who isn't still just getting to know me, and to be able to (even over the phone) have unspoken understandings. My mom and I are very similar. When she was freshly graduated from college, she moved from her college town to Atlanta, living completely on her own and without much opportunity to look backwards. She didn't know what she was doing either, she was working a teaching job for pennies and migrating between different apartments where she has told me that just turning the lights on would set off this weird scattering noise as the floor adjusted itself from being covered with roaches. She has throughout my life told me stories that paint Atlanta in such a glow that I often toy with my own ideas of living there for a while, and yet she didn't move there permanently.
She moved back to Maryland when she got into a grad school program, and she got pregnant with me shortly afterward, and she found that the way to create a home for herself wasn't to live in a place where she felt most comfortable, but instead to form a home with the people she had.
San Francisco makes me feel, for the first time in my life, that I can do that too. I've been able to meet people that want to get to know me, and want to help me be the best version of myself simply because they're interested in certain aspects of my personality and want to see those aspects succeed.
People always seem to wonder how long I'm going to be out here. And truthfully, I have no idea. I'm not opposed to staying here for a few years, but I'm also not opposed to picking up and starting all over again. All I know for sure is that I'm not done here yet, and to go home now would push me backwards.
I love that people in San Francisco have told me I have a very west coast vibe, and that so many people seem to remember my name only after the first time they ask for it. I love that being out here has made me question everything about myself, although I don't love feeling confused and lost and so painfully, quintessentially 22 all the time.
The other day I went to the mall with my aunt and two of my youngest cousins, and as we sat together and I ate a cheap chicken parm from Sbarro (or whatever equivalent it was) she asked me what exactly did I miss most about Maryland. I was kind of at a loss at the question--what are the things that I miss about Maryland? Obviously I miss the people that I left behind, but that's kind of a cop out of an answer, isn't it? I certainly don't miss the humid summers and the freezing winters and the easily definable difference in climate. I talk about the fact that the city of Baltimore felt so segregated often enough and with enough disdain when people ask me about living on the east coast that that can't possibly be something that I miss. And I like the fact that not all the same chain restaurants exist out here. Although I've been to Starbucks enough times to make me feel like I'm back living at college. I guess I've been spending so much time trying to get to know this new place that I haven't even given myself a chance to miss home.
But when I stop to think about it, I can come up with a list of things I miss about my home state:
I miss being at my house in the springtime when the cherry blossom tree in my front yard would be so full of pink flowers that I couldn't see out my bedroom window and my front porch would look like it was lost in a pink blizzard
I miss being able to sit on the couch in my living room, watching TV and eating Kraft macaroni and cheese with tuna out of a big plastic mixing bowl
I miss my senior year at Loyola, when I could come home from class and my roommates and PJ would all be sitting around our dining room table coloring in one of our many coloring books with colored pencils that we kept in this old tupperware container
I miss my dogs, and I miss driving to the beach with Juliet
But when I really stop and think about it, what I miss about Maryland is a list of experiential things--it isn't that I miss the state and the east coast and how different it was and all that I'm used to, I miss people, and things that happened to me. I don't miss things that can be recreated simply by getting on a plane and going home. I miss certain rooms in the house where I grew up and I miss being in college and getting into the routine of going to the library to return old books and get new ones but these things aren't created by a place. They're created by an experience living in a place. I talk badly about home kind of often--for whatever reason it seems like the thing I feel most compelled to convey when I talk to west coasters about the east coast is that it's different in a way that is negative. I tell people there isn't anything going on at home, but deep down I think I know that's not true. I think what it all boils down to is that for now, I've outgrown Maryland. And that in the next few years of my life, I need to explore different places so I can form more experiences.
The other day at work, I met a guy who had come to write a screenplay and eat Totchos in the middle of the night, and he told me about how a year or so in San Francisco had turned into, for him, a decade. He told me he was still searching for a place that really truly felt like home, that made him unquestionably feel like he was in a place that gave him a sense of community regardless of what people he surrounded himself with. We're all searching for that though, aren't we? At least that's what I told him. When I studied abroad in Cape Town, I remember flying back from being on safari with my mom and our family friend, and feeling a sense of utter relief, that was physically palpable, when I saw the outlines of Table Mountain and Lion's Head against the backdrop of the ocean; it meant that I was back to a place that after only two and a half months felt like home. In five months of living there, I can confidently say that Cape Town grabbed ahold of me in a way I never expected. But at the end of the day, it is only a city. It's a place with flaws like anywhere else; while living there, I was simply in the frame of mind to accept it as closer to home than the town where I grew up.
My mom and I have had a couple of long phone conversations lately, and she's reminded me in several different ways of the real reasons I came out to try things in San Francisco. In particular, she reminded me yesterday that this was a big change not just because of the geographical distance, but because I've knowingly changed every facet of my life. I moved away from my relationship, I'm not in school for the first time in my life, and I've forced myself to grow up in a way that feels all to normal and all too strange at the same time.
It's been helpful to talk to someone who isn't still just getting to know me, and to be able to (even over the phone) have unspoken understandings. My mom and I are very similar. When she was freshly graduated from college, she moved from her college town to Atlanta, living completely on her own and without much opportunity to look backwards. She didn't know what she was doing either, she was working a teaching job for pennies and migrating between different apartments where she has told me that just turning the lights on would set off this weird scattering noise as the floor adjusted itself from being covered with roaches. She has throughout my life told me stories that paint Atlanta in such a glow that I often toy with my own ideas of living there for a while, and yet she didn't move there permanently.
She moved back to Maryland when she got into a grad school program, and she got pregnant with me shortly afterward, and she found that the way to create a home for herself wasn't to live in a place where she felt most comfortable, but instead to form a home with the people she had.
San Francisco makes me feel, for the first time in my life, that I can do that too. I've been able to meet people that want to get to know me, and want to help me be the best version of myself simply because they're interested in certain aspects of my personality and want to see those aspects succeed.
People always seem to wonder how long I'm going to be out here. And truthfully, I have no idea. I'm not opposed to staying here for a few years, but I'm also not opposed to picking up and starting all over again. All I know for sure is that I'm not done here yet, and to go home now would push me backwards.
I love that people in San Francisco have told me I have a very west coast vibe, and that so many people seem to remember my name only after the first time they ask for it. I love that being out here has made me question everything about myself, although I don't love feeling confused and lost and so painfully, quintessentially 22 all the time.
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