Places.

I can’t explain it. No matter how hard I try it’s absolutely unexplainable. It’s a feeling. It’s a surge that runs through my body every time I arrive at this place. I see the sign and it’s completely automatic, I just can’t help but smile. This place is called Pullman, Washington.

Now, if you’ve been to Pullman, I’m sure there is one question running through your head, and that question is why? Why this place? And again, I can’t explain it. It’s not something that can be told, it can only be experienced. And once you experience it, it will never go away.

To even begin to explain why I love this place, I have to back track to a year ago.

Up until last August I had lived in the small farm town of Everson, Washington for 18 ½ years, which incidentally was my entire life. I had never known anything except for Everson, and to be completely honest, when August came I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to. I had great friends, and I loved my surroundings. Unlike a lot of people, my high school experience wasn’t bad. In fact, I was terrified to leave it. I put everything I had into my high school; I was in ASB and student council all four years and countless other clubs. My senior year I was ASB president and it was a difficult task that I loved more than anything. I was ASB. The terrifying part was that after high school I was left with nothing to define me, nothing to say “yes, that’s what I do with all of my extra time” because it was over. Gone. Done. No more ASB for Renae. What will I do now?

I didn’t know what to do. I spent my summer working, hanging out with friends and pretending that August was merely a figment of my imagination. I didn’t want to leave. I desperately regretted the fact that I never applied to Western. I hated the fact that I had to leave, had to grow up and move on. I had to decide what would now define me.

The first few weeks in Pullman were probably the worst in my life. I didn’t know anyone, didn’t know my way around campus and couldn’t wait the mere two weeks before I could go home for Labor Day and beg my parents not to make me come back. Labor Day came and I told my grandparents how I felt, their response: “we’re going to tell you the same thing we told your aunt when she said she wanted to come home, stay for a semester and if you’re still miserable, you can come home.” I thought I was going to die. A whole SEMESTER?! That’s 4 months of my life I would be wasting. I drove the 7 ½ hours back to Pullman feeling defeated and crying probably 2 hours worth of the trip.


A few days after returning to Pullman I wrote the following:

‘I decided something today, I decided that me not having a good time in Pullman, is all my fault. It's because I'm not letting myself. I feel so sad that I'm away from home, but im not looking on the bright side, when I should be. This is going to change, I'm going to make an effort to meet new people and I'm going to make the most of it. Besides, isn't that what growing up is all about? making decisions and moving on, I can't stay in Nooksack all my life and expect to be happy. It's like the lyrics from a song by Corey Crowder:

“So before you pack your things and go
There's one last thing that I want you to know
That you can't find happiness
If you won't let go.”

If being hung up on missing everyone is holding me back, its time that I let go. Not let go of the people or the places or the memories, but just let go of them to the point where theres room to make more memories, see more places and have more friends. Eventually things will work out. If I wasn't meant to be here, I wouldn't be. Coming home made me realize that as much as I love and miss that place, its all i've ever known, how am I supposed to know anything except for Everson if I don't step outside my comfort zone and go find it?’

That was it. The turning point. My mood changed, I met new people and I became truly happy. This place is my home now. Not where I go to school or where I live, but it’s my home. I love everything about it. Going back to the small town where I grew up is different now. Things have changed. Other people have changed and I’ve changed. I think that’s part of the reason why I love this place so much.

It helped me grow up. And become me. Not the me that was defined by life in a small town, not the me that was defined by my family or by the high school I went to. Instead this college town helped turn me into me that I love. The me that is living in an apartment on her own with two of the best people in the world, the me that doesn’t care if her room is messy and her clothes aren’t clean and most importantly the me that was brave enough to leave that small town and become a different person.

This town made me the me that is completely indefinable by anything other than myself.