What It’s Like to Move to Iowa

Trepidation, fear, and uncertainty. Three similar words and the three words that went through my mind as I embarked on my move to Iowa. “What had I gotten myself into,” I asked myself. I was an east coast girl through and through. I loved the lifestyle. I loved the energy. I loved having everything I could have ever wanted just a short drive away. It was no big deal to spur of the moment decide I wanted to go to Philadelphia or New York City. I was used to the shopping and the craze those metropolises provided.

Fast forward to me living in Ames, Iowa. A city, a college town, yet still there was a difference. The mall hardly seemed like a mall by my standards. No more Wawa or Sheetz either, much to my yearning for either (and if you have never heard of them, I feel sorry for you. Visit PA!)

People here are friendly and wanted to help you. This astounded me. I had heard the phrase “Iowa Nice” and it certainly was true. Genuine niceness what a foreign concept to me. Now I do not want to say that people on the east coast are not nice because we are, but it is a different kind of nice. With the busy lifestyles that we lead, our “nice” is we will help you but let’s eliminate the small talk. We just simply did not have time for that amidst everything else going on in our lives.

My first impressions of Iowa were “man, this place is flat and so much corn,” so the typical outsider stereotype thoughts of the state. PA has a lot of agriculture and other industry but where I’m from, I was not used to seeing such large tracts of land devoted entirely to farming. Ames is a nice size city and I quickly found myself falling in love with it. I soon came to realize how much my personality embodied the Midwest spirit. My former yearning and desire for energy-crazed city life bebopping from one thing to the next quickly turned to a desire to slow down and experience nature, creating my own fun.

I might never have guessed I would have fallen in love with the Midwest like I have, but now I would not change a thing. The Midwest is home now. I have the love of my life here and a sense of belonging, the Midwest is where I belong. PA, you were a great home for twenty-two years, but now the Midwest has my heart.