Becoming Idahoan

I grew up in New Jersey.  Seven years ago, I graduated from high school and spent the next two summer months waiting for my big adventure-- moving to wide open Idaho.  I had the same conversation with countless people (sometimes duplicates).  It went something like this:

Random friend/family/coworker/stalker: "So, you excited to go to Iowa?"
Me: "I'm going to Idaho, not Iowa."
Them: "Oh, yeah.  Potatoes!"

People are idiots. 

Anyway, yeah, I was excited.  I was as naive as everyone else as to what I should expect to find 2500 miles away from the only region I had ever called home.  I anticipated spurred cowboy boots and saloons and shootouts.  I envisioned back-country accents and horse-riding know-how.  I didn't care much about the expansive fields of potatoes (that I never see!).  I cannot describe to you how ecstatic I was to see my first tumbleweed. 

Despite the Wyatt-Earp-iness of the petrified plant life, Idaho was not what I was expected.  The people were civilized and did not possess too much of a regional diction (despite calling soda "pop" and lollipops "suckers" and thinking "funner" is a word--weirdos).  The first time an employee of a grocery store greeted me cheerily as I walked through the automatic front doors, I stopped and stared quizzically for a few seconds before responding with a cautious "Hi?".  I speed-walked to collect the items on my list and shot sideways glances at every smile.  Friendly supermarket checkers?  It was strange, but what I thought would be super different from 'back east' ended up feeling better.  Although unfamiliar, Boise, Idaho was...homey.  The more people I met, the more I seemed to fit. 

But I couldn't let go of my roots. 

When my background was relayed, natives would ask me, "Where's your accent and your big hair?"  Jersey Shore was a thing yet, but clearly this widespread stereotype needed to be perpetrated.  Sometimes I catch myself drawling, to which Matthew affectionately requests that I continue "talking Jersey" to him.  (I love it when you talk Jersey).  Shaddup.

I've been in Idaho for almost seven years (SEVEN YEARS!  2500 (ish) days.)  And I am noticing things in myself that indicate to me that I am losing my ever-precious street cred.  Even though I grew up in the 'burbs,  I always imagined myself in the city-- New York or Philly.  I can still see myself there.  However, that feeling of homeyness that I first felt in the pseudo-city of Boise is spreading.  I find that people can be family even if they aren't blood.  I know how much I will miss the white-capped mountains when and if we leave.  While at a friend's home in "the country", defined as 20 miles from the "city" of Coeur d'Alene, I was able to see myself owning land, my children running barefoot through wide, expansive grass rather than concrete.

Something inside me is tearing.  More than anything, I want to go home; to the Atlantic ocean and the seasons I remember with joy.  But I am also becoming at home here.  I don't want to, but I know it is happening.  The more relationships I build, the longer we push back our decision, the harder it will be walk away.