March 29, 2024

Hometown City Girl: Thankful for Home

By Catherine Christine

[Forward: Hometown City Girl is a diary of sorts; a collection of my stories, experiences, and trials of growing up in a small town in Southeast Ohio along the river dreaming of living in the city and then moving there and realizing I don’t quite fit in either place. Parts of me are a little too “country” for Columbus, and parts of me are a little too “city” for the people I know down home. It’s an interesting balance but it makes every experience interesting trying to figure out what role I fit into.]

I realize a story about Thanksgiving is a strange place to start in a collective of stories about who I am, but it is of course, that time of year. The holidays have also been tremendously important to me for as long as I can remember, I’m a big lover of tradition when it comes to this topic. For most holidays I automatically plan on seeing my family and I’m usually the first in the family to start asking about nailing down a time and whose place we’re meeting at; but Thanksgiving and Christmas have an especially important place in my heart. Last year was my first holiday season in Columbus away from my family and due to work I couldn’t see them and uphold our normal traditions and it honestly crushed me, I’d never thought I’d see a holiday where I was alone.

It simply didn’t feel like the holidays at all for me and even once I did get to see them after the fact it just didn’t feel the same at all. Being the “new guy” meant I didn’t get that time off but this year thankfully is different. I’m pretty sure I’ve been bugging different members of my family since early October about details for Thanksgiving out of my eagerness. Above all else, this year I’m thankful for my family. Before moving to Columbus I’d never imagined a scenario where I don’t see my family. Down home most people have their families right there around them just like I did so seeing them is just a given, but here, in the city where things don’t shut down, money doesn’t stop needing to be made people have to put a considerable amount of thought into if they will see family or not. That environment was just so foreign to me and still is, I saw a lot of people heavily weigh the decision to go home for the day or not. Sadly I noticed the vast majority of my coworkers chose not to even if they had the day off for reasons like they had to work the next day and it would’ve been a tiring trip to get back in time.

This situation put me in a bit of a conundrum with myself. The part of me that so desperately wanted to make it up here knew these are the kind of prices you pay to get your start in the city, but the part of me that remembered home wondered if it was worth it. I came to realize, it wasn’t worth it. The longer I’ve lived up here the more life experiences I’ve had that my family hasn’t been a part of, which is all a normal part of growing up and going out on your own but there are times the two hours away feels more like two thousand miles away. Even with phones and social media there have been times that I’ve felt so alone and isolated it feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. These times when I get to come home and see my family recharge me in a way that nothing else does and are indescribably important to me.

This is why even though I have to make a two hour trip down, then a two hour trip back in the same day and having to stop to see different parts of my family throughout the day I wouldn’t trade it for the world, it’s so worth it even if I’m dead tired the next day. If you’re like me and you have to travel home, if there’s any way you can pull it off then GO HOME. Even if you have to work the awful crowds on Black Friday, even if things aren’t perfect with your family, even if you haven’t spent a holiday with them in years, do so this year. I promise you it’s worth it and these will be the memories you hold on to. There are people that don’t have families to go home to on the holidays and I can’t imagine anything worse during this season. If there’s anyone out there that knows me and knows they’ll be alone, you’re always welcome with me; and any of you reading that knows someone I encourage you to invite them along to your gatherings. Friends can oftentimes be even closer than family so why shouldn’t they have a place at your table if they need it?

This Thanksgiving, and every one to come I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for the good times and memories I have to reflect upon when I feel at my lowest up here alone. I’m thankful for their understanding that I needed to move away to do my own thing and build a life for myself and never taking it personal when I can’t be there with them. I’m thankful for our family traditions that started when I was too small to remember. Above all though, I’m thankful for the “hometown values” they instilled in me that has helped me get where I am today and keeps me on track. I apply these to my life daily, and even though I prefer life in Columbus I’m forever grateful for how being raised in the small town I call home has made me into the person I am today.

~ An ambition too big for home; a heart too big for the city