Home is where the heart is but where your from isn't nearly as easy to wrap up nice and neatly in a cliche saying. I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida and there is never a day that I don't feel like I am from Tallahassee. I've been gone for longer than I lived there at this point in my life but in my heart and mind that doesn't matter. Where I am from is more than a geographic location, its a culture. How often do you hear the saying "Where I'm from they _______". I have my own. Where I am from they eat grits, they ask you if you want sweetened or unsweetened tea, boil peanuts and you can walk in your barefeet over to your friends house on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought. Where I am from its pratically illegal to be a Gator fan and racism is unfortuantely alive and well. Good, bad or indifferent this where I am from.

Yet, despite my never ending fond memories of Tallahassee it is no longer my home. My home is here in Colorado. Where I live you'd get frostbite on your feet if you tried to walk barefoot on Christmas Eve. If you want sweet tea they hand you sugar packets and the suggestion of boiling a peanut will only get you wierd looks. It's my home because both my daughters were born here, my parents are here, my sister and brother are here and both my husband and I feel this is a place we can grow old together. I am from Tallahassee but "we" are from Colorado. My family as an entity became who it was in Colorado.

There are times I consider going back to where I'm from but I realize that isn't really possible. Where I am from is a specific place and time and the things I need are much different now. For example, Denver has one of the best Children's hospitals in the country and having a child with Spina Bifida I can get the kind of expertise I would have to drive 200 miles to recieve in Tallahasee. I have friends here who are in the same place in time that I am and they know me as I am now. I'm considerably different than the girl who came from Tallahssee.

I think where you are from is where you spent most of your childhood. So I think you can live somewhere for thirty or forty years but you are still from where you grew up. I don't think any amount of time can erase the memories, places and people who helped you define who you are.

Learn more about this author, Monnie.
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