It's okay to like your hometown

When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time in what my dad called “la la land”. If I wasn’t reading, I was probably daydreaming of some big, bright future in some big city working a big girl corporate job. I would also, of course, maintain a thriving social life, be outdoorsy and fit, volunteer in my free time, and have financial security (because it’s totally feasible to do all of those things at once and still have any battery left whatsoever). My hometown of Sacramento, CA would be a distant memory, only to be revisited when I came back to see my family.

I was fully confident that, in order to have the life of my dreams, I needed to go far away from home. Complete and total independence was a must. Relying on anyone else? Weak. Community? No need. Putting down roots? Detestable. The C.O.D. of a bright-eyed young person’s ambition. I needed to be fully mobile, able to go wherever the wind (or the job market) took me.

If my younger self could see me today, she’d be horrified.

~

Earlier this year, a few months before I graduated from college, I accepted a job in Chicago. Set to start 8 short weeks after I walked the stage, I was fully prepared to pack up my whole life and start anew in a city I’d never been to before. The week before final exams, I flew over 2,000 miles, offer letter in hand (or, more accurately, in my iCloud files), and signed the lease for a studio apartment. Then, less than 24 hours after I touched back down in Sacramento, I received an email from the recruiter. Here’s what it said:

“We are very excited to have you join us in just a few weeks. I wanted to reach out as {company I’d be working for} recently had an opening on their team in San Francisco for {the same role}. The position would be on the same team you are joining, but based in California instead of Chicago. I know you are probably actively making arrangements to relocate to Chicago, but given you are originally from California, we wanted to reach out with this opportunity and see if this is something you may be interested in? This choice is completely up to you and the team is excited to welcome you either way.”

First off, props to this recruiter and the team for being so thoughtful. I felt way more valued than the standard corporate machine cog that day.

Second, what the heck?! I’d spent the last 3 months mentally preparing for a massive life change, ready to live out my big-city-corporate-boss dreams, and now here was this other option, one that I know my loved ones had been praying for for weeks.

I mulled over the decision. I tossed and turned, losing sleep, imagining how different my life could look depending on what I chose. One was obviously financially smarter; staying in California meant I could live at home a little while longer and save money, and I could be close to my support system. But a part of me was still attached to the dreams I had as a little girl. What if I regretted not taking the leap?

~

It’s been about 8 months now since I signed the offer letter that kept me on the west coast. Being fully candid, I felt a bit sad about it for a while. I was mourning the life I might have lived, the person I might have become, the lessons I might have learned. But honestly, in choosing not to leave home, I’ve learned so many valuable lessons about slowing down, appreciating where you are, and putting down roots.

I’m not entirely sure when I started writing off people who stayed close to home as lame and unambitious. Maybe it comes from the “townie” stereotype – that person who never leaves town, never accomplishes anything, and is probably a bad influence on the local youth. Maybe it’s just because the fictional characters I idolized didn’t achieve success until after they left their hometowns. Your guess is as good as mine.

What I’ve learned, though, is that staying near your support system doesn’t make you unambitious; in a lot of ways, it actually makes you smart. If you, like me, are lucky enough to have a network of family and friends near you, why would you leave if you have the choice not to?

Obviously, if that’s not your situation, that point doesn’t apply to you. But for me, just recognizing that I couldn’t generally associate the act of “staying at home” with a particular type of person was a step toward a more nuanced understanding of different people’s reality.

I’ve also come to truly appreciate what it means to be part of one’s community. Though this looks different for everyone, I can say with confidence that caring about your community and interacting with it in different ways is so much more rewarding than I ever thought it could be.

I’m not even talking about anything extreme. For me, it’s having a home church where I can see the same people most weekends. It’s going to the market and knowing the vendors by name. It’s volunteering at the city shelter sometimes and saying hello to our super sweet volunteer coordinator when I see her. It’s having a favorite Pilates studio and a list of the good restaurants and a go-to coffee shop. I’ve lived in Sacramento my whole life, but it never really felt like home until I started branching out into the community.

What an incredible privilege that is – to be safe enough to put down roots. It’s one not afforded to many, and yet I shuddered at the concept for so long. But, as my Pastor mentioned last Sunday, we, like trees and other green things, have to be planted to flourish. We need to have roots to thrive.

My life is undeniably different than what I imagined when I was young. It’s slower, less “independent”, and way less career-centric. But I’ve learned to love my city, and that there’s more to life than “girlbossing” my way through it. I’ve discovered that there’s beauty in taking my time and appreciating where I am, even if it’s not where I thought I’d be. And even though I missed out on the excitement of living in a new city, I’m so grateful that God kept me here, and I’ve never been more confident that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.