Tales of a coffee-holic: Calling home

Two times in my life I’ve picked up and moved to a seemingly random place where I knew no one, or almost no one.

When I moved to Denver, I knew only the person I moved there with. I left an extensive network of friends in Indiana that I’d been making basically since birth and a gigantic extended family. Many of my relatives still live on Sievers Road in Vincennes, Ind.

When I moved to Denver I faced anonymity for the first time in my life. When I lived in Vincennes, everyone knew my dad.

In Denver I knew one person. I found making friends from scratch to be pretty difficult, especially before I started school. But once I left Denver to come to Sidney after graduation, I’d developed some friends close enough to call family and had the backing of many advisors and professors at my school. The difference between moving to Denver and moving to Sidney was a pretty big one to me. Both moves were critical to my future, to go to school in Denver and to start my career in Sidney. But I moved to Denver with someone and I moved to Sidney completely on my own.

Granted, moving here on my own was my decision and I’ve always been an independent person, but the prospect of moving hours away from anyone you’ve ever known to a town smaller than any in which you’ve ever lived can be pretty scary. On arriving here I was pretty convinced that I’d spend my time a solitary soul and that no one would like me. I was pretty wrong about that.

I’ve found in my two moves away from everything and everyone I know that being comfortable in the place you live is up to you and your attitude about it. I never thought I’d think of Sidney as my home or that I’d be loyal to this place. I was wrong about both of those things.

Now, my tiny studio apartment is my home. I find its ancient fixtures charming rather than depressing and its small space a boon to frugality. The gold flecked 1950s countertop, my brown 70s era refrigerator and the ancient wooden window frames that leak air like a sieve all add to the charm of the building. I’m just thankful to find people that welcome me, care about me and to have a roof over my head, even if it is a hole in the wall.

I’m sure many Cabela’s workers had experiences similar to mine upon first moving to Sidney, and I hope that you’ve all come to call Sidney home as well. Living in a strange place and trying to keep it and its people at a distance is difficult. It makes you wish you were living somewhere else.

Really, the trick to calling somewhere home even if you don’t think it’s really the place for you is to embrace the people, the places and the experiences you have there and to stop longing to be somewhere you’re not. With the holidays coming up, I’m sure some of you out of towners are missing family and friends and I hope you all are able to make it to the place you consider your permanent “home” this holiday season, but in the meantime be thankful for those you’ve met here and the opportunities afforded to you in Sidney.

Many of us end up living in places that we never expected to live and that we maybe never expected to enjoy once we arrived here. The most important things is to know that your life is happening right now and that looking forward to a day when you leave isn’t going to make time here, or anywhere, more enjoyable. Embrace where you are right now and make Sidney your true home, if only for a little while.