an unexpected joy
did i turn into a mid-size city girl??
I’ve always been a city girl. I was born in DC and raised between Baltimore and Phoenix. It wasn’t until I dropped out of ASU and moved to Greenville, NC, for a guy I was dating (maybe that is a story for another day) that I got a sense of “small-town” life.
But after graduating from East Carolina, I hopped right back into big city life, moving to Atlanta. Then I left Atlanta to circle back to DC because I knew for a fact I was NOT going to settle down and have a family in the A. I did not see it in the cards for me there; not the type of person I was looking for.
*for context I left atlanta in december of 2015 – three weeks shy of my 30th birthday*
About two years after living and dating in the DMV area, my person found me. I say it like that because my husband super-liked me on Tinder, skipping to the front of whatever “line” I had in my inbox.
We got married on September 21, 2019, less than two years after our first date. In June 2020, we moved to Columbia, SC, and have been there ever since.
I absolutely LOVE living here. It is an unexpected joy.
I knew moving to a new city that neither of us had ever lived in as newlyweds would be an exciting adventure. But I didn’t expect to fall in love with this mid-sized southern city.
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I live in a place where I …
Look for a familiar face at the checkout line at Publix.
Notice when they painted the exterior of the Popeye’s and came home to immediately tell my husband, “Baby, you see they repainted Popeye’s.”
Run into people we know pretty much everytime we go a restaurant or community event.
Frequent Main Street. I never thought I would live in and love a place where Main Street is the center for many events and community. I feel like that is what you read in books … “she met him for their first date at a new restaurant on Main St.”
Subscribe to the local newsletter to discover what is happening in the city. I absolutely love that we have a local newsletter. I literally plan my days or weekends based on what I find in the newsletter. And it’s not just me that does this, it’s a routine/ritual that a lot of people partake in. Also, randomly searching on Eventbrite is a thing here. I love knowing that I can find a random event online and go to it, and I will either know someone or meet someone new to chat with while I’m there.
Get more visitors than I did when I was living in DC. People check in at The W (name of our house) at least once a quarter. Since December, we’ve had three sets of visitors. We love hosting people. I enjoy showing our family and friends a good time in an unexpected place. I’m the type of host who will send you an itinerary for your visit, have a craft cocktail ready for you when you arrive at the house, have welcome gifts, and schedule lots of downtime during your stay. Folks never want to leave The W. They are already thinking about when they will return. I also have a guestbook for folks to sign. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Curated an entire book club community that is so dope. Columbia is very local at first; it was easy to “market” my book club to interested readers in the community. Of course, I advertise our monthly meet-ups in our newsletter and on Eventbrite. More on my hobby here.
Go to more events than I did living in DC. I was definitely outside when we lived there but in a different way. This city loves a community event, large or small. They love a gala – I’ve never owned so many gowns. They love a festival – the Latin festival is one of my favs. They love an event at the art museum – I go to most of them. Okay, so yeah, DC has all those things or any major city. But I think the difference is we get them one at a time, whereas, in other places, it happens all at the same time or back to back. Or the cost is so damn expensive that you are pricing certain groups or people out.
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You could say I like living here because of my current stage of life—I'm married, have a kid, and have a career I enjoy—but I think the ease of life down here really makes me fall in love with it. Oh, and the weather.
I find so much joy in the simple things living here because there isn’t much to living here. There is nothing big and exciting that brings folks to Columbia – except our 3x women’s basketball champs. So you create the joy and excitement for yourself.
Living here has also made me a better friend. My expectations for friendship are very different now. Because of limited distractions, your time with friends is much more detailed and intimate.
Maybe friendships have always been this way, but living in major cities, I have amazing friends who are too far away to come to my house for coffee at 10 a.m. or have careers that lock them in every moment of the work week. But I’ve been that friend, too.
Before living here, I’d never met up with a friend to go grocery shopping. The grocery store we go to has a bar where you can grab a drink and shop, so maybe that adds to the excitement. But I love this type of shit. I love lowkey fun. I love pulling up to a friend's house because I’m in the neighborhood or meeting up during the day for some unexpected daytime fun.
Let me also name that my friends here also have amazing careers, like myself, but it’s just different. More folks have control of their daytime hours than others. We aren’t just out here living like the real housewives of columbia, although sometimes I feel like we are lol.
Moving is hard work. Moving as an adult is even harder. Trying to make friends and find community is one of the most challenging things to do when being pulled in many different directions. But I’ve met some pretty dope people since I’ve been here.
Columbia isn’t a permanent stop for my family. We will eventually leave this place that I adore so much, and it will be hard to top.
Have I become a mid-size city girlie?! What kind of city do you live in?