In the fall of 2013, one of the only semi-coherent criteria I had for choosing colleges to apply to was geographic location. I was set on leaving the South, where I had spent the first 18 years of my life, for bigger and better places — namely, New England. I had seen pictures of the region’s trees turning bright red, yellow, and orange in the fall; I had heard about its progressive politics, and I was sold. In August 2014, I packed my brand new heavy winter coat and snow boots and, with a mixture of sadness, anxiety, and excitement, boarded my one-way flight to Boston.
A funny thing happened over the course of my freshman year. As my excitement for college faded into the feelings of loneliness and homesickness that many freshmen experience, I found myself experiencing pangs of nostalgia for my family and high school friends, but also for the places that I had taken for granted growing up: the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of Atlanta. The smell of car freshener would bring back memories to speeding down the roads of Atlanta with my friends trying to make it to school in time; the sound of a Future song would take me back to dancing on the party bus on the way to prom. Winter break could not come fast enough.
I relished the time I had at home over break, playing basketball on the street with my brother in the mild Atlanta winter and swapping exaggerated stories of college exploits with my high school friends, who all seemed to be having a blast. The end of winter break came too quickly, and so I steeled myself and returned to campus in the hopes that I would find that feeling of home that had eluded me in the fall. My freshman spring was dotted with highs and lows; I grew closer to my small group of good friends, and had a blast frolicking in the first snowfall of the year, and the first snowfall of more than a couple of inches that I had ever seen. But the snow got old and the feeling of home remained elusive.
I found myself missing aspects of the South that I had barely noticed while I lived there. I missed spring starting when it was supposed to, and I missed the daffodils and honeysuckles that announced its arrival. I missed the thunderstorms that would end as suddenly as they began, even though I had always been terrified of thunderstorms growing up. I missed hearing the crickets chirp in the backyard on warm evenings. I missed the food — the biscuits at the Flying Biscuit, the burritos at Willy’s, the milkshakes at Zesto, the waffle fries at Chick-fil-A, the hash browns at Waffle House. I missed the beauty of the Southern landscape — the ubiquity of trees and greenery, the winding West Virginia roads immortalized by John Denver, the view of downtown Atlanta heading west on MARTA from King Memorial. I even missed the strange, man-made beauty of suburban sprawl endemic to Atlanta and so many other southern cities, and the way the power lines framed the big southern sky at dusk. I missed the people in the South most of all, especially my family, but also the contagious warmth of everyone. I missed waving at passing cars and greeting strangers on the sidewalk.
Beyond these feelings of homesickness, I grew defensive of my southern-ness. Instead of switching allegiance to Boston sports teams, I became even more strident in my Braves, Hawks, and Falcons fandoms. I hung up posters of Jimmy Carter and Outkast in my room. I bristled when people wondered why I, despite being from the South, spoke without a typical southern accent. I fumed when, in conversations in class and among friends, racism was treated as an exclusively or predominantly southern phenomenon, when the South was flattened to a stereotype, and when the complexity, diversity, and vitality of the South was erased.
There are aspects of Boston and New England that I have grown to love, and I have made many lifelong friends here. But Boston is not my home. As a high school senior, I was ready to leave the South for good. Now, as a college senior, I know I have to go back.
Image Credit: Quinn Mulholland