By: Natalie Couture— Staff Writer (CSU Intern), The Drive Student Blog
At one time, if anyone asked me if I was planning on moving back to my hometown, I would’ve laughed and said “there’s absolutely no way.” Well, then circumstances changed.
Nicole Policarpio writes, “I always envied my western friends who had to leave their homes when they turned eighteen. They were forced to live on their own, and even though it was hard for them, they matured faster than everyone else.” The Ascent
Well, that was me.
I moved away from my small midwestern hometown (in one of those states that people really never remember because… they’re not really very important) a month after my 18th birthday, into the sprawling metropolis of Chicago– to its South Side, nonetheless. I remember my family warning me before I left: “Make sure you always have your guard up. People there aren’t as nice as they are up here.” They probably didn’t realize that I already knew that “North Dakota Nice” wasn’t actually nice at all, rather a knowledge of when to hold one’s tongue, but nevertheless, I left and watched out for myself.
I did mature faster when I left home… I refused to let myself down.
And wow– leaving that hometown was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
I believe I did mature faster when I left home, not because I wasn’t mature before, but because I refused to let myself down. I told myself I wanted to leave that small city where I was born and raised, where it only took me 15 minutes to get across town, and I did. And I loved it. And if you would’ve asked me even a year ago today if I would’ve thought about leaving that city, I still probably would have told you “no.” At the very least, I would have said “not right now.”
Coronavirus took (most of) America by surprise in February/March of 2020, and its effects spread far and wide by April of that year. In Chicago, it meant that my student teaching experience was cut short, and I was teaching students asynchronously and through a computer screen for the remainder of the semester. I was confined to my 15th-floor apartment, in a building that athletes at my University frequently commuted from. There was nowhere to go; reality changed in the blink of an eye, and by May, things didn’t seem to be changing.
I decided to spend some time back in my hometown for a few reasons. First, there was a graduation in the family. Second, I missed my sister, and third, I wanted a sense of normalcy. Back in my hometown, life was business as usual. There were few, if any, cases of COVID at the time of my arrival, and people begrudgingly wore masks if they were required to. The sense of normalcy remained for months — until my little town of Minot, North Dakota became, as Atul Gawande called it in his article for The New Yorker, “The Worst-Hit County in the Worst-Hit State in the Worst-Hit Country.” The New Yorker
I worried that I was going to lose all that I had learned in Chicago if I came back to my conservative hometown. But instead, I realized what an incredible opportunity it was to move back- one filled with possibilities that might even alter my own ideas about “what comes next.”
My time in my hometown that summer was unforeseen. I came back thinking I’d stay for a couple of weeks, and so many things snowballed that I decided to stay a month, and then two. I started to realize, by mid-summer, that my life in Chicago was starting to fade. I knew I’d need to find a new apartment, but my friends weren’t looking to move. I knew I’d need to find a teaching job, but I had only gotten a couple of calls. I took the time to ask myself “what am I going to do?” and I thought about my concerns.
- I wanted to know if moving back would mean that I was a failure or an opportunist. In the case of COVID, I resorted to understanding that I was making the best decision for myself at the time.
- I worried that I was going to lose all that I had learned in Chicago if I came back to my conservative hometown. But instead, I realized what an incredible opportunity it was to move back- one filled with possibilities that might even alter my own ideas about “what comes next.”
In Chicago, I learned how to be a teacher: one that thinks of her students as individuals with their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings that informed their schoolwork and personalities. I learned that my inherent biases and inherent privilege would impact, drastically, the way that I teach if I do not take the time to continuously grow as an educator who believes in social justice. I got so lucky when I found a place to work, in my hometown, that encouraged me to use those skillsets to help better educational systems in my home state. I moved back to North Dakota in August, and I’ve been here since.
My time spent in Minot has allowed me to consider my experiences through a new perspective. I think of how much I’ve grown, both personally and professionally, since I left this place when I was 18 years old. I needed to be somewhere else– I needed to see something different. But now I have tools in my box that can help me repair some of those broken things I referenced often in my college career out of state. I have a chance to make a difference in the places where I recalled change really being needed.
So, here I am, writing from my living room in my hometown of Minot, North Dakota, wondering what comes next. Where do I go from here, from this place that I never thought I’d be again? Do I stay? Do I go?
All I know is that I will continue to grow, regardless of where I’m planted. And, just maybe, being back where my life began isn’t such a bad thing after all.
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