All100 and Under
Some People Aren’t Meant to Stay Where They Grew Up
Everything I needed was not right in front of me the whole time
I was down to the last couple of days before my flight. I had packed and repacked my bags. I had memorized the subway lines I would be using. I had earmarked my ‘Lonely Planet’ — Madrid to death.
“You’re gonna miss us,” my boss said to me on my last day of work.
“Everyone thinks about leaving from time to time, but once you get some distance from us, you’re gonna wanna come running back. Trust me.”
A couple of years later, I journeyed outside of the U.S. again. This time, to Nicaragua, then Panama, then Peru. I heard the same thing from my family friends before I left.
“It’s an exciting time in your life, but once you’re gone, you’re only going to want to come back.”
or
“You’re gonna get tired of new places and want to come back to where you know people.”
But, they were wrong.
I had become sold on the idea of living abroad when I was 13 and an exchange student from Japan arrived at our school. I became obsessed with what it must be like to travel and see other countries.
So I studied language. I studied international economics. I read stories about other cultures. I pushed and pushed and pushed until my parents finally agreed to let me do an exchange year in Spain.
After I came back to finish my degree, I immediately started to plan another trip. And I didn’t just want to go on vacation for two weeks, I wanted to live abroad.
But the voices from my friends and family in Kentucky were still in the back of my head.
And after almost five years outside of the U.S. in New Zealand, Panama, Nicaragua and Peru, I came back. Ready to take in everything that had been right in front of me the whole time. Ready to experience my state with fresh eyes.
Except the fresh eyes didn’t help.
Despite my best efforts to settle again, with a rewarding job, rekindled relationships and a continuous supply of Bourbon in my pantry, I still didn’t want to live in Kentucky. Friends joked that I should have travel “out of my system by now,” but I didn’t. I felt like I was just getting started.
I found myself, again and again, dreaming of the new places I could go, languages I could speak, and people I could meet.
For some people, where they grew up is shrouded in a blissful fog of nostalgia. No other place will quite feel the same.
But not everyone feels a connection to where they are from. Not everyone is meant to stay where they grew up.
For me, Kentucky is beautiful. Kentucky is where my family and some of my best friends are. But Kentucky is not where I want to live.
I like visiting the countryside, but I want to live in a city. A well-connected city, where I can easily travel to other places and countries. I want diversity in my community, both in language and culture. And I want a job that incorporates those things too.
While Kentucky is beautiful, with its rolling hills and horses that dot the landscape — It just can’t offer me those things.
I moved back ten years ago, with a starry, Lifetime-movie expectation that maybe Kentucky was my place after all. But I quickly realized that if certain things were important to me, I had been right to leave. And I would have to leave again.
There’s nothing wrong with loving where you live, where you grew up or wanting both those places to be the same. But, it’s not for everyone.
For me, the secret to loving where I lived wasn’t right in front of me the whole time. Instead, my place was somewhere I had to discover on my own.
Thanks for reading.
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