“There are only about 1,000 people in the world and 200 of them live in Seattle,” an aspiring writer says, sitting with arms crossed quite proud of his clever theory. “Yaaas!” I blurt, lighting up with joy. “I call it that Memphis thing! Y’know, the biggest small town syndrome,” I squeak with excitement.

My ebullience catches him off guard, “No!” Spitting the word at me, all elation lost on him.  “I hate that place,” he growls petulantly.

A Memphian during high school, he leveraged college to escape the Midsouth and never looked back. For the most part, our young generation is defined by where we went to high school. Formative years spent corralled in places we didn’t choose, forced to acclimate to the lowest common denominator of civil behavior. If your identity isn’t based on those years, it’s often based on your reaction to them. Certain events and technological advances in subsequent times have changed our perception of the future. Unfortunately, it hasn’t helped heal any wounds of the past.

Reasons to dislike Memphis very solidly exist. It’s an upstart river town that doesn’t have much going for it historically. Truly no coincidence it’s an epicenter of The Blues. An entire city basically subsisting off the nostalgia of a dead 50’s legend and the fact it’s the closest urban center in a 200 mile radius. For nearly forty years, the only notable historic charm in the area hinged on pre-War memorabilia. Civil or Race, depending on the century. During my childhood, downtown crumbled into corrupt nepotistic dust as white flight drove out upper middle class money. The suburbs were prisons of right-wing zealotry, hammering home the value of money and assimilation. If you bought into their litany it meant a life of breeding and hetero-normative interests.

I didn’t escape until much later in life. I was taught surviving elsewhere is too hard for me to do alone. I blithely accepted this theory though I was also far from complacent. I learned hard and valuable lessons during college that haunt me to this day. Determined to make the best of a bad situation, I cut my losses and decided to finish college in Memphis where it’s cheap and easy. I already had an inkling that my BA was BS but there are steps we all must take. During that era, I discovered a tiny blue island of misfits managing to survive in the Great Red Midsouth. All wierdos for different reasons, in those parts black sheep hold their own by sticking together.

Your perspective warps if you live in any single place too long. Surviving my twenties in the harsh streets of Memphis affords me strength and fortitude. Denying the option to grow old and fat in that place, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been as a working class hero in an altogether different harsh environment. Living the dream every day, paycheck to paycheck. Embracing change and finding a place in the world that feels right. Earning respect and making the most of what I’ve got, I’m not perfect. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else. I simply know what I’m doing is hard and that probably means it’s worth something.

Proliferation of life goals is one of the biggest changes of the 20th century. If I was born in my grandmother’s day I’d have been married with children before 21. If I’d been born with my mother I’d be dead from an overdose already. Or worse, the fat sister. Americans in the early 1900’s were able to make their own rules, supposedly in a better world than the century before. Each generation is searching for a better life for their children. Somehow, success becomes synonymous with not working and in the new millennium you can do whatever you want, even if that’s nothing. The rich and the homeless are both idle for different reasons, each unfulfilled.

Overall, West Coast populations are starting to deal with not having enough space for the first time and East Coast people have almost fully turned their the other cheek. America is overcooked and basting in it’s own ego, a vain rotisserie of consumerism and personal space. Ripe for the picking, anxiously awaiting a committee of vultures to take notice. The upper class is it’s own whale carcass, beached by a tide of middle class soldiers fueling post-internet industry. Every time I try to embrace the magnitude of Our American Shit Show, I pull back. This congested mire of intersectional insecurity is better than the world I grew up in. No need to rock a sinking boat.

Despite the cynicism, I still want to find love and family. The former Memphian I chance encountered in Seattle is a person I have particularly fond memories of. Nearly 18 years since our last encounter, I don’t remember anything but playful fondness. Even so, I couldn’t let his outdated impression of my hometown go unchallenged. I defended the Memphis I know and consequently never heard from him again. I don’t reject my past in order to find a future here in Seattle. Rain City is a place my heart has been since high school and there’s a good reason why. Uncanny levels of similarity in the energy surrounding each place, it’s not something I can explain without eyes rolling. Sensing the connection is only the beginning of my goal here. I’m aiming to find the proof.