I don’t think we’re meant to stay in one place forever. I’ve never believed that where you’re born is where you have to stay. But there’s a difference between moving on and forgetting where you started — and having pride in where you’re from is worth holding onto. The way people talk to each other, the food you can’t get anywhere else, the pace of life that shapes how a place fits together — there’s nothing quite like that sense of belonging to where you came from.
I’ve now lived on my own in four different states, and there’s nothing that comes close to the transparency I grew up with in New Jersey. Back home, I never had to wonder where I stood with anyone. I didn’t have to guess how people felt about a situation, or about me. I knew where I stood, and that let me see things for what they actually were. It taught me why keeping things quiet — holding it all in instead of saying it — is so toxic, and how much it can wear down a relationship over time.
I left New Jersey for Colorado, where people are far more likely to shrug something off than engage with it directly. There’s a laid-back, “we’re too cool to care” energy out there that took some getting used to. Washington State was the opposite in a different way — everything filtered through a layer of politeness that made it hard to tell what anyone actually meant. I learned to read between the lines just to figure out where I stood, which was a real adjustment after growing up somewhere so direct.
Then there’s the South, where hospitality is baked into every interaction — but it took me a while as an outsider to learn that warmth and full transparency aren’t always the same thing. Southern charm is famous for a reason: people are welcoming, quick with a smile, generous with their time. But there’s also a “we’ll deal with it when it comes” approach to hard conversations that I never quite adjusted to. I grew up believing you plan for the worst so you’re ready for it, so that mentality took some real recalibrating on my part.
None of this is a knock on any of these places — I’m generalizing based on my own experience, and generalizations always leave things out. Every place I’ve lived has taught me something different about how people connect, disagree, and show up for each other. But after living in all four, I keep landing on the same conclusion: I’ll take directness over comfort, every time. Knowing exactly where I stand with someone — even when it’s blunt, even when it stings a little — beats spending my energy trying to read between the lines.
The East Coast isn’t perfect. No place is. But the honesty, the “let’s get to business” mentality, the sense that people will tell you the truth even when it’s inconvenient — that’s what I miss wherever I go, and that’s what I’m proud of.
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