Home is such an odd concept when the place you were raised no longer feels like home.

I grew up in a small town in West Tennessee and I always dreamed of living in a large city. However, when the time came to pick a college and move away, I did not. I chose to stay in the little town and attend the small university. I cannot give you a good answer as to why I did so, only that I guess the fear of growing up got the best of me. For a while I was content with attending the chosen university, until a year ago, my life started to change. I realized that living in a small rural, conservative town was not for me. The dream I had a very long time ago that died away needed to be resurrected, I had to move to a large city.

The National Student Exchange Program provided the opportunity to live out my dream, at least for a semester. For unknown reasons even to myself I chose to attend the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have never been to Salt Lake City, but I am well traveled and view myself as independent. I thought to myself, this is going to be adventure to my personal growth and perspective of life. No matter how prepared I thought I was to tackle this journey of moving from a small town to a city with 968,000 people, I wasn’t.

I have visited large cities, including New York, Seattle and Minneapolis, so I thought this would be no different than visiting. I am not visiting, I am living. Growing up in an area I could not find contentment in was not living, simply it was waiting. When I moved into my apartment in the downtown area I could not find the encouragement to go out the door and explore the city. Small town life tells us to be cautious of cities and no where can truly be safe. I stayed in my apartment for two days until I found the encouragement to go to where I will always feel safe, a coffee shop. The coffee shop I chose to go to is always super busy and packed with people. As soon as I walked into the building, I left. My social anxiety made me nervous to be around forty people, I did not know, at one time. How I identified myself in comparison to those people prevented me from taking a seat next to a stranger. “I am not a resident of Salt Lake City, I am a visitor from Tennessee.”

My dream of living in a city began to crumble.

I decided I needed to meet people, so I went on a couple of dates with guys from the area. Through these dates, I discovered amazing coffee shops, art galleries and the prettiest places in the city. Eventually, I took on the challenge of discovering the city myself.

Discovering the city lead me to have a unique perspective of life compared to what is normally held in a small town. Now I no longer view myself as a visitor, but simply a short term resident of Salt Lake City. In fact I am a short term resident of anywhere I go in the future, including the place I once called home. Home is wherever you want it to be, go out and create it. Advice for those of you who are from small town with dreams of living in a big city: let nothing create fear inside of you. T. S. Eliot wrote in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Do I dare/Disturb the Universe?”

Yes.

Let your dreams disturb the universe.