I get this question often, and I never know quite how to answer.
I just had the privilege to travel to NYC for the first time, meeting my best friends from WA for a fun girls weekend.
As we toured the city, this question was asked of all the tourists "Where are you from?" I feel torn as to what to answer. Even when I take family/friends places in Tennessee, I am unsure what to say. My girlfriends and family can confidently say "Seattle" or "Washington State".
I live in Tennessee. My drivers license is Tennessee. We are now homeowners in Tennessee. However, we still own a house in Washington as well.
I lived in Washington for 41 years---- so where am I "from"?
I absolutely LOVE the South, and love Tennessee.
I wish I could be 'Southern', yet I still have this fierce loyalty towards Washington State and the West Coast in general-- there is a tug of war in my heart and mind-- the things and people I miss from the PNW, and the things I adore here in the South, yet I don't feel as if I can identify ( probably not ever) as as Southerner, and I am no longer in the PNW either.
At what point can I truthfully say "I am from Tennessee?" Almost a year and a half in doesn't seem adequate, as the answer isn't really cut and dried in my mind.
Even though I have no plans to move back to Washington, when I see a WA state plate, my heart leaps, and I want to run over and meet that person-- maybe it is the common bond, a sense of 'home' that I miss- a sense of belonging as I navigate my way through this new life we have created in the South, as I don't feel fully assimilated here. Even Oregon or California (!?) plates make me nostalgic.
When I say 'home' people here correct me, because here is now 'home', yet what do I call Washington State where I spent nearly my entire life, where my immediate family, lifelong friends and the bulk of my extended family still reside?
At the Nashville airport, a native ( with a thick accent) asked me if I was from Atlanta. I told her "no, I live here." yet I still felt the need to add that I am originally from Seattle.
How do you answer this question?
