Where Are You From?

Horatio right after earning his green striped belt in Ninjutsu.

Horatio is in summer school for the month of July. On the first day he said that the teacher had the students introduce themselves and say where they were from. He wasn't sure how to answer. He was born in Georgia and lived there for two years. He's been in North Carolina for the past 5 years, but is about to move. And he can't say he's from Wisconsin when he hasn't lived there yet. 

I have struggled a bit with regional identity throughout my life. Growing up in the South, I didn't feel like a Southerner. I was born in Buffalo, NY. Both my parents were from New York, so I wasn't exactly steeped in Southern culture. I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta with many other transplants and never developed much of an accent. 

As an adult I finally decided I could maybe call myself "Southern" just to learn that "true" Southerners aren't having it unless you are born and bred in the South. A friend here in North Carolina said I was part of the "New South," which I think I might be able to accept. 

But now I'm leaving. As a child I dreamed of leaving the South - a place I didn't really think I belonged. I wasn't sure if I was a New Yorker. Or if maybe I fit better in a place like Texas (another state I lived in briefly as a child) which wasn't really North or South. I actually swore for a good long time that I would move back to Texas because I started elementary school there and moved mid-school year, so that extraction was particularly difficult for me. 

The Atlanta area does feel like home to me. I know that for sure now that I've spent some time away. And I've gotten pretty comfortable in North Carolina as well. I've accepted the South, and I'm moving away, not to get away, but because of a job (a job I'm very happy to have!!!). I look forward to figuring out how I fit in, in Wisconsin. 

I'll admit that I've worried about moving my kids around the country. I've worried they would feel that same lack of regional identity that I felt. Not being able to say with conviction where they are "from" or feeling like they truly belong to a place. 

Horatio told his class that he was from "America." I think that pretty well sums it up, actually.