Whenever I find someone with stories about a life in California, I get a little envious. Never in my life have I visited the usurper of the Pacific (sitting in the San Francisco airport for 45 minutes doesn't consitute a visit; until you breathe the outside air, the relationship is not consummated). Through my unfamiliarity and ignorance I picture California as a meticulously crafted perfection, where the weather forecast is always "nice", every sidewalk is a catwalk, everyone is just a little bit more refined, and the glitz and glamour sprinkle endlessly upon each of its citizens. California hasn't seemed just different than my hometown of Pensacola; it has seemed better.

For eighteen years I woke up every morning in Pensacola, Florida. I found it too small a city to be exciting, yet too big a town to be peaceful. Now I have lived in Gainesville for three years, and in its familiarity Gainesville has essentially become a youth-infested Pensacola. While I enjoy my life and the people around me, the monotony of my scenery has given me an itch to pack a U-haul with my belongings and clear out of this town... state... country... planet... wherever; I don't really have a plan. I'm not talking about California--- that will tie into the story later. I'm just saying that after I graduate next year, I definitely plan to continue my studies outside the Southeast US.

I've long assumed that my life would be somehow improved if I escaped the Deep South. I've never truly felt like a southerner. My entire family is from New York. We're talking about the Bronx and Brooklyn here, boroughs glamourous in their own right, where the people may be poor but their hearts and stories are rich. Like my elder New York family, my skin is of olive complexion, I refer to tomato sauce as "gravy", I pronounce that morning drink as "kwoffee", and I can get a little vulgar in my oft-released sarcasm. That sounds like the background of a typical New Yorker, and the truth is that I did grow up in a New York family, but I went to a 130-year-old high school with cows roaming the outskirts. My school nickname was the Aggies. We had a little shack across the school called Fran's Diner, proudly serving greasy (though I must admit, tasty) southern cookin(g). It was such a popular hangout that many guys took their prom dates to Fran's before the dance. I took my prom date to an upscale downtown restaurant of New England decour, but I digress.

Since high school I have repeatedly expressed my desire to leave this area for better pastures. I profess how I will never have my own personal permanent address in Pensacola. Within this declaration has been the underlying suggestion that I may settle down far away, moving to other regions until I find the one that clicks. I've assumed that by moving away, my life will be better.

I spent this weekend with some funny/brilliant/energetic/hot/incredible girls, friends of a friend. They made a pit stop in Gainesville during their move to South Carolina. I never asked them why they were leaving a place as wonderful as California in order to live at a much slower pace in the south, but before they arived I had that exact wonderment rocking my brain. It reminded me of a few months ago, when I found out that my cousins were leaving New York and relocating near my home in Pensacola. They're coming down here? Do they realize what they are leaving? How did these girls decide that a move to the south would be better than where they were living?

I think I understand now. Everyday they woke up in the same city, their own Pensacola, and it was time to breathe some new air.

We all have something in common. We have spent our lives in hometowns that are not inferior establishments, just too familiar. We need to feel the rush of taking an independent journey through life, leaving the comfort of our holes and leaving our own mark elsewhere. I've decided that when I'm looking for grad schools outside the southeast, I'm not looking for someplace better. I'm looking for someplace different, someplace that is mine and mine only.

And I need to make this move now, because I've realized something else.

While I can't imagine myself ever returning to Pensacola permanently, my dream is to raise my family somewhere in the vicinity of the southeast. Now, don't get me wrong: it's not that I've suddenly fallen in love with southern hospitality. But it's important to me that I live near my family, where my kids can truly know their grandparents. If there is ever a family dilemma, I want to be able to pack the car with a few things, hit the highway, and be able to hug my mom and dad by nighttime. That's why I need to leave to Arizona or New York or to California at this point in my life. I need to make this move on my own and see what another part of this great country has to offer. I need to be able to tell my story about that journey I made in life that separates me from my family and friends. And I need to get it out of my system, so I can be set to follow my dreams when the time comes to raise my family. I may find a place where the pace better fits my style or the restaurants serve their linguini with "gravy," but that place will never be any better for me than the southeast. The south is irreplaceable because that's where my family is.

That's where home is.