In the Beginning

I’m a semi-southern gal, born and raised in the beautiful mountains of Virginia, who's recently found herself transplanted into the hustle and bustle of NYC. I grew up in an unincorporated community, meaning we had no municipal government, leaving political jurisdiction in the hands of a neighboring town. What this REALLY means is that we were the suburbs of a town of 13,000.. the country-est of the country, if you will. Some people will tell you that Virginia is not a southern state. These people have likely never been to places like Roanoke or Danville… or anywhere in Virginia outside of NoVa. People in Virginia talk with Southern accents, love sweet tea, and have that Southern charm and hospitality. They take football and NASCAR seriously. Well, maybe NASCAR is more country than southern but whatever the case, you can’t get very far in my town without seeing at least a few people sporting their NASCAR pride apparel.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I even realized I was considered “country” or “Southern.” I went to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where something like two-thirds of the students were also Virginians.. but probably 75 percent of those Virginians were of the NoVa variety. Everyone noticed my accent, they acted confused when I said something was “right much” or “right good,” and they giggled every time I was fixin’ to do something. Somewhere along the line I started to make a conscious effort to sound less Southern. I started to wonder if people looked at me and thought “oh, if she talks slow, she must THINK slow too!” By graduation I didn’t need to actively think about how to avoid talking like a Southerner.

Not long after graduation I met my wonderful boyfriend, a New Yorker who had come to Virginia for law school. I quickly learned that my attempts of hiding my Southernisms were not very successful, as lovely BF once told me that one of his professors always bragged about being married to a “Southern Belle” and he didn’t understand what was so great about being with a “Southern Belle” until he met me! He called me out every time I would ask him to “cut off the lights” and smirked a little every time I said “ya’ll”. After he pointed it out, I started noticing that I still turned up the twang whenever I got excited or found myself talking to someone else from the South.

BF had a job waiting for him in Manhattan after he graduated law school, so he invited me to move to the city with him. We had already been living together for a few months at this point and I didn’t exactly have any roots in Charlottesville where we were both living, so I agreed to give it a go. I had never been to NYC and all I really knew of it was what I had seen in movies so the idea of it was pretty frightening. Frightening to the point where I went to BF crying about how I wasn’t sure if I could be happy in a big city surrounded by so many people. When I mentioned the idea to my parents, they became vocal in their concern that I would be coming home in a body bag so it was a REALLY big decision for me. Oh, the things we do for love! Last summer when BF came to take the NY Bar Exam I decided to tag along. To try and save a few bucks, we stayed at a hostel on the Upper East Side, where it happened to be trash day. It was approximately 147 degrees outside and our hostel had TINY rooms, a communal bathroom and no air conditioning. The smell of the trash filled the air and there seemed to be a lot of bums digging in the giant piles of garbage for treasures. I had never seen so much garbage in all my life, nor had I ever seen people so desperate as to consider eating rotting trash their best option. I spent the first day of his two day exam holed up in the room, too petrified to go check anything out. That night we went out for a bite to eat and had an AMAZING gyro that gave me second thoughts about Manhattan. Good second thoughts. The next day I went shopping in Midtown with BF’s sister and we had a lot of fun. The idea of delicious food is all over the place at all hours of the day and shops with cheap goodies around every corner kind of sold me on NYC. Well, that and the fact that BF would be here..

Fast forward to the end of December when we actually made our big move to Manhattan... We had ONE DAY to find an apartment, which is a looooong story for another day, and wound up living a few blocks from his job in Murray Hill/Midtown East. I’ve been here for about three and a half months now and even though I still have a lot of adjusting to do, my life as a country girl in the city is keeping me as happy as a goat in a junkyard!