“So, where are you from?” This is the question I have been asked at least 100 times during my first year of college. To their surprise, I respond with a simple “here.”
Most people get as far away from their hometown as possible for college. However, when you grow up in a small town you find that it’s hard to leave. In all fairness, I didn’t stay because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving home. On the contrary, I wanted to flee the nest just like every other 18 year old, but it just so happened that my dream school turned out to be 10 minutes away from my house. In all honesty, though, I don’t mind.
Growing up in Carpinteria, California is a dream. Tucked between the comforting Santa Ynez mountain ranges and protective Channel Islands, the Santa Barbara coastline is an incomparable paradise. Weather consists of a brief winter at a chilly 60 degrees, with the rest of the year at the perfect resting temperature of 75. It’s the place where giggling children run around barefoot and play tag in avocado orchards, and having a tan year-round is normal. It’s the place where Saturday mornings are spent hiking trails and frolicking in meadows in the back hills of Montecito, and Saturday nights are spent surfing underneath a full moon at Rincon. It’s the place where you eat burritos for breakfast, tacos for lunch, and enchiladas for dinner (but never regret any of it). It’s the place where a jump in the ocean is considered a shower, and where your mom knows what you just did before you walk through the front door. It’s the place where greenery is ever ceasing, and summer is endless.
Yes, people actually do live where you vacation. It is not just a destination spot, or place on a map that is stopped at during a road trip through California. It’s home. It’s the place where you can find my best friend’s mom taking her daily jazzercise class at the veteran’s hall, and where the whole town fills the stadiums Friday nights cheering for kickoff underneath blinding lights and a rosy sunset. It’s the place where you go through school with your high school graduating class since kindergarten, and where your family knows, or is related to, every other family in town. It’s the place where firemen and girl scouts march side by side down one main street in the annual 4th of July parade that only lasts for five minutes, and where my mom and I would spend balmy summer days riding our bikes down through the campgrounds to Foster’s to get ice cream cones. It’s the place where kids spend their summer break diving into the Pacific and swimming with pods of dolphins passing through the channel, and where my grandparents celebrate their anniversary at the local brewery with a nice, cold beer. It’s the place where I had my first kiss on the beach while star-gazing and shyly looked away afterward, and where a sea lion taunted and chased my big sister out of the water and back to shore and we laughed about it for hours on end.
I don’t regret going to college 10 minutes away from my house. I’m proud of where I come from and I love where I live now more than ever. I admit I can be territorial over my home town; as locals, we often complain about tourist seasons and even have games making fun of people who aren’t from here, but I love sharing Carpinteria. It may just be a small beach town to some, but to me, it’s so much more.
