Where Am I From?

“Where am I from?” This is a difficult question, since I have lived in several places for an extended period of time. I was born on Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. While I was still a baby, my parents moved to South Bend, Indiana. They separated a couple of years later and I stayed in Indiana with my father. At the age of nine, I moved to Georgia to live with my mother and I primarily lived there until the present. All of this relocating has made it difficult for me to identify myself with a given location.

Since I did not live in Louisiana for very long, I was too young to generate an opinion of the city or state. I also do not know whether I share any of the people’s characteristics or behaviors. These points make it difficult to consider Louisiana as the place that I am from, which is odd, since it is where I was born. The next state took up some of my more formidable years, so I will be able to draw many more comparisons between myself and my next location.

South Bend, Indiana is known for a couple things. Most notably is it is known for being the home of the University of Notre Dame. Naturally, I am a big fan of the “Fighting Irish”. Notre Dame’s prestige and public image, served as a beacon of hope for the surrounding inhabitants of South Bend. Another lesser known truth of South Bend is that it is home of the Merchants National Bank, which is one of the banks that John Dillinger robbed in the early 1930’s. I do find that I share some similar characteristics to the people of Northern Indiana. I find that I am much more acclimated to be comfortable in cold weather, which would make sense given the longer winters I experienced in South Bend as a child. This also makes Georgia summers a nightmare. South Bend has warm summers, but they are not as humid. I also think that these extended winters may have contributed to my “Golden Tan”, or lack thereof. My pale skin color appears to be a characteristic too as many of the white folks in this region share the same ultra-white, almost translucent complexion.

Around 9 years old, I moved to Marietta, Georgia. Everything in Marietta was so much nicer and cleaner than anything I experienced in South Bend. I noticed that the weather was much warmer and the winters were almost snow free. I went through middle school and High school in Marietta, so it became the place that I identified myself with the most. This is where I made the most friends and is also where I searched for and found my own individuality. I have been told by many Southerners that I sound like a northerner. This is because I do not share their “draw” or accent, which is funny since I was born in the south and spent the majority of my life in the south.

I am still unsure of where I am from. I guess it depends on whether one is referring to where someone is born or where someone mostly identifies with. If asked, where I am from, my answer would still be that I was born in Louisiana, but I am from Georgia. I made this decision knowing that I share more physical characteristics with the people of Indiana, but it is the friends and interactions of Georgia that I identify myself with the most.