Ever feel like you could click your heels together in your best magical shoes and follow all the instructions only to find you still don’t feel at home or even know where home is? Better yet, do you ever feel suffocated, like you’re craving something new and different with no easy way there? Yeah, me too. Some may dismiss this as a side effect of growing up and while that isn’t totally wrong, there’s more to it than that.

A recent conversation with someone really got me thinking about these ideas of not knowing where home is, feeling trapped by the forces that be in your society or life, and, for lack of a better term, being the odd man out all the time. Down here in the good ole south, anyone who dares to be different in our society is looked at as a hoodlum or weirdo by most people; if you’re not a wholesome, Christian human being that follows tradition, you end up being that relative all your other relatives pray for. The nice people will call you a hipster, others probably won’t be so nice.

Pause. Let’s get this out of the way: nothing written here is meant to badmouth or offend anyone. Take this as someone’s honest experience in her society, nothing more, nothing less.

Moving on:

Sunday afternoon’s conversation about pursuing an education in a region other than the South got the wheels turning because it was something I hadn’t really thought about in depth. There are institutions and parts of our turbulent history that influence education here. For example, what books and parts of history are included in classes, and even how our professors approach teaching us the more “sensitive” material. Most of what I remember from my pre-college history classes has to do with the American Revolution and the Native Americans. Anything and everything else was skimmed over.

The flip side of my train of thought was about the kids who grow up not exactly believing everything they are spoon fed from day one, the way they challenge ideas they don’t agree with and ask the hard questions. I thought about their transition into young adults who then go off to college where they delve even further into who they are as individuals, ignoring the more traveled path in order to make their own. These young people are the ones that seek more knowledge than what is presented to them; they ask “what if” and “why” in situations most just accept as normal. They think outside the box and have the ability to look into their slice of the world from a bit of an outside perspective because they grow up as an outsider. Oftentimes, these kids are the ones being labelled weirdos, hoodlums, hipsters, and sometimes troublemakers, all because they don’t follow the grain.

I was one of them.

I can only speak from personal experience and go off of what I’ve talked about with other people. Trust me when I say, it’s not much because you never know who you can open this can of worms with. Coming to college, getting away from a high school full of clones and being in a new place helped me find a few people I could semi-relate to on all this. I found more people that I see eye-to-eye with and are just as eager to see what life is like beyond the Mason- Dixon line. In my years south of said line, there have been numerous occasions where I felt like I should come with a warning label that discloses who I really am.

That’s not exactly a great way to feel when you’re still living in the state and/ or city that shaped you into who you are. Going home to Jackson sometimes makes me feel even more out of place than I do in Hattiesburg. While part of that has to do with growing up and figuring yourself out, the other part has to do with the person I am in comparison to your typical Jacksonian or even your typical Mississippian. The honest truth of the matter is our society here has this ideal image you have to live up to in order to fit in; you have to talk right, dress right, act right, hang out with the right people, go to church, be in the right clubs, and be interested in the right things to make it in the right circles. Anything else gets you on your parents’ and grand parents’ watch list and probably your teachers’, too.

And yet, people still wonder why so many young people want to move away from here…..

I’ve always been one of those people that others stayed away from because I was different; my interests hardly ever lined up with anyone else’s and I never blindly followed a crowd. I always thought for myself and questioned many things I was told that were “correct.” The way I saw the world and everything going on within it is different than most. The music I listen to isn’t at the top of all the charts. The things I find entertaining don’t line up with mudding, drinking, and partying all the time. What I want to do with my life amounts to more than just a paycheck. My views on religion are completely different from the majority of our society here. I did my own thing, I still do and I always will.

Living in a place where you get looked at funny for dressing as you please, dying your hair bright colors, and openly displaying tattoos and piercings isn’t the best feeling. Another aspect of it is driving around any town in the south and seeing at least seven churches within a span of a few blocks. It’s kind of uncomfortable for those who don’t identify with a religion. Knowing you’re surrounded by people who feel so strongly about something you just can’t believe coupled with the fact that how you act, dress, talk, and look affects how some people will look at you, treat you, and talk to you makes you feel very out of place.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I don’t belong here. Frankly, I’m tired of feeling out of place in the place I call “home.” Yes, there are those in my community who share some of my views. But that’s not enough. Living in the shadows and trying to falsely live up to a society’s expectations of what I should be like while still trying to have an individual identity is not for me or many of the people I know. We want to be able to express ourselves without having to fear being targeted or not being hired for how we think, what we believe, who we love, or what we look like.

Even my dad has suggested I get rid of my nose ring so I will be a stronger candidate for jobs. While I understand what he means, a piercing does not define my ability to work, what I do in my free time, or who I am in general. Neither do tattoos, your religious opinions, or who you choose to love. Whether some people realize it or not, we’re all entitled to that right granted to us in the first amendment. Besides that, we live in the twenty- first century. It’s about time we start accepting those who are different instead of viewing them as hoodlums, stoners, weirdos.

Feeling like an outsider is one reason I plan to leave “home;” ever since high school, I have been itching to figure out what life is like in a different place where people are more open-minded and worldly than some of those I have come to know here. Mississippi has shaped me into who I am in my twenty-two years here and it will always hold a special place in my heart. But I don’t belong here. While I know I'll never find a place that doesn't have close-minded people, I'm still searching for that place I can call my home and mean it wholeheartedly.