The non-update update

Hey y'all! As I'm finish my actual update post, I thought I would tie you guys over with something a little different. Here is a sort of reflection on home, Kentucky, moving, and all that jazz. Talk to you soon!

There’s this saying back where I come from that reads “I never met a Kentuckian who wasn’t either thinking about going home or actually going home.” All my life, it’s been hard to comprehend what Happy Chandler (a former governor and beloved civil leader from Kentucky) meant when he coined that saying, and why it resonated with so many people. I heard this expression so many times in every event that I participated in through the Kentucky YMCA (I’m a KYYMCA slut, so the hundred per event hearings have really accumulated over the years). These programs, usually government or service oriented, were the one place where I could see Kentucky pride seeping out of every word and action that was said and done, yet it were these same programs through the Y that pushed me and countless others to leave Kentucky. How could a place so obsessed with Kentucky actually push people to dream big and leave while also encouraging them to come back? While living in Kentucky, people’s relationship with the Happy Chandler quote hadn’t made much sense to me, but that has changed drastically now that I find myself across state lines.

I was born and raised in a small Kentucky town that at the time seemed to be a never-ending cycle of the same cookie-cutter, white picket fence lifestyles. These typically began with a cute kid and a wedding, but ultimately ended with divorce or the inability to leave Bowling Green and do something new, something different than everyone else. I knew that regardless of my angsty teenage preconceptions of the town that raised me, I’d never really felt like I could be proud of Kentucky. To me, being proud of your home or at least capable of feeling comfortable there is what really validates whatever it may be that you consider to be a home. It’s taken me most of my life to understand what home is. It’s taken me leaving home to understand what it is that makes me constantly yearn to go back to the Bluegrass state.

Home to me isn’t a specific place or a house or an object. After moving from a town completely incomparable to D.C., I’ve begun to find signs of home here in places that are so different from home that it reminds me of there at the same time. Home to me lies not only in the people and relationships that I’ve left back in Kentucky, but specifically in that feeling I get when I’m around them. Those casual yet regular, everyday experiences are what I’m missing when I’m gone.

There’s not all that much to do in Bowling Green unless you’re interested in farming, eating, or buying mattresses (there are entirely too many mattress stores in BG). My favorite place in my hometown is this little coffee shop called Spencer’s that sits on one length of the town square. Spencer’s overlooks the famous fountain of downtown on one side, the parking structure where everyone hangs out on another, and the Episcopal church that I attend on the remaining side. When I lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Spencer’s was my refuge. I went there at least three times a week for hours at a time. The staff knew my drink orders and which meals I would want that day; the barista and I even shared the same name. This sacred site, but more specifically the table on the front porch facing the square, is where I always sat. I’ve taken every single important person in my life to that specific table at that one coffee shop. Every. Single. One. I awaited my NYU decision letter there on a cold night in December and eventually celebrated my acceptance with the two people that arranged for me to visit both NYC and the NYU campus for the first time. I took my sappy high school romances there. I’ve been to Spencer’s with all of my parents, grandparents, and best friends. I had church youth group there every Wednesday night. I’ve run into old friends, caught up with long lost ones, and made new ones there. I’ve taken my baby brother to Spencer’s, though he didn’t yet understand the significance in it. I’ve studied, stressed, loved, cried, and laughed there. The relationships and feelings that embody home to me came as a result of a filled seat at the other end of that coffee shop table.

As I have settled into my new city, I’ve struggled with finding any place that fosters that feeling of home-- somewhere that spurs relationships and friendships like that chair on Spencer’s porch, all the way back in Kentucky. On my search to find a new refuge, I ended up at a stereotypical Starbucks, the one next to McPherson Square, out of complete coincidence; my original studying intentions that day were to lead me to a park that I found shut down because of a fluke bomb threat (yet another thing doesn’t remind me of home). It was a Tuesday, so as I would normally do at Spencer's, I ordered an iced chai tea latte, found a spot outside to work, plugged my headphones in, and looked out over the square. I began to realize how this routine was nearly identical to my routine before moving, yet it felt different. The most important part was missing; the chair in front of me was empty. I was alone. No matter how similar this scene was compared to Spencer's, it felt uncomfortable and foreign. People were everywhere, cars and buses moved about, conversations flooded the air, and the hustle and bustle of city life seemed to peek out of every crevice imaginable. Faces passed me all around, yet I knew none of them. There were countless interactions and exciting things surrounding me, but that connection to home was nowhere to be found.

I finally realized that the Happy Chandler quote about Kentuckians was the most relatable thing that I’ve ever heard. Staring at this knock-off version of my favorite place, I finally felt that first rush of starting college/missing home sadness make its way over me, soaking in through all of my pores and consuming every bit of my thoughts and feelings. As the first few weeks of living in this new place passed, I wondered why I didn’t miss “home” as much as most do; I was and continue to be thriving and happy, yet I didn’t know why I felt the same way about my physical “home” of D.C. as I did about my physical “home” in Kentucky. For the first time in my life, I understood that home didn’t have to be a location or a tangible object. It doesn’t have to be a zip code or a birthplace. My parents, my brothers, my grandparents, my friends, even the tattooed Spencer's barista named Meredith- these people are home to me. The love and comfort and protection that I experience when I see them sitting in that chair across from me makes me feel like I’m at home- regardless of what chair or where.

Coming to the realization that my new locality is incomparable to Kentucky and the people that reside there completely redefined my idea of home and altered how connected I felt I could be to anything, let alone a feeling from a simple human interaction. I understand that as time passes, these specific interactions and the feelings within them may change and pass, much like how people constantly leave and enter into each other’s lives, but each one manages to better defines home for me. Meredith the Barista may get a new job one day, my friends may move off to college and begin their own journey’s away from Bowling Green, my brother may go through a phase when he decides that he is too cool to hang out with his big sister, and all of these scenarios are completely understandable. No matter how difficult it might be to deal with the change, I’m having to learn that home can be morphed and uncomfortable and lost and then found again. Home doesn’t have to be this perfect cookie-cutter idea, and the further away from Kentucky I go, the easier it is for me to understand that the feeling of home can be found in the most unexpected ways, with the most unexpected people. The constant exchanging or maintaining of interactions with people that I come across make each feeling of home even more impactful and important to recognize. Home clearly isn’t the easiest to understand or to figure out, but one thing I’m sure of is that these important people—our shared conversations, laughs, and interactions—these are home. No matter where I end up, whether that be somewhere new or even back in Kentucky, I know that I’ll never take a butt-filled seat for granted again.

#college #home #kentucky #friends #family