Holidailies Prompt: Do you still live in the place where you grew up? How far away are you now, and why?
Nope. Though I’ll be there in less than two weeks! I miss living in the land of giant dogs. Well, until I get a giant goober on my pants. Then I remember why giant dogs aren’t awesome 100% of the time.
According to my friends, I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Southern Illinois. Farm country. I can identify crops and farm equipment and I can tell you the primary animal on a farm based solely on the odor coming from that farm. Apparently these are strange skills. Who knew?
I’m now about 800 miles away, in Washington, D.C. Why? I ask myself that question at least once a month. I’m here because I jumped on a job opportunity, and I can’t complain. It’s not always easy to get into the federal workforce, so it was a chance I just couldn’t pass up. Plus I just wanted to try living elsewhere for a while. D.C. is definitely different. I’m going to get spoiled with all the restaurants and museums so close. And the metro, for all its faults, is still pretty great. I haven’t had to get a cab since I moved here. Plus the people watching on the metro is a lot of fun.
I do find myself missing the midwest though – mostly midwestern sensibilities. I don’t know if I can explain it, but it’s just a different way of living. Even when I compare a major city like St. Louis. It’s a little slower, a little friendlier, a little less ridiculously competitive. Here, the first question anyone asks is “Where do you work?” And the reaction that you get when you respond tells a lot about the person asking. More than once, I’ve seen people say “Oh… that’s… interesting…” and then go and find someone with a more prestigious job to talk to. It’s all about networking. And I agree that networking is important, but at some point, I just want to not think about work and have a little bit of fun.
So sometimes I change the subject by talking about the day when people rode tractors and combines and horses to high school one day. If nothing else, I get some interesting looks.
When you say “mid-west” you mean “south”, yes?
I didn’t realize until a few years ago how odd it is to tell people that you routinely pass by farms (well, at least fields) when you drive around town.
I don’t get the whole networking thing, which is probably why it’s a good thing I don’t live in DC (or, I’m told, most of the east coast).
I have to kind of agree with Erin, just because I do even consider Indianapolis to be kind of in the South, so southern IL would probably be “south” too. 😉
Gee, I live in southern Rhode Island in the township of South Kingstown (in Washington County which everyone calls “South County”) so I guess I must be a southerner too!