I couldn’t appreciate growing up in Tallahassee until I was gone
Wait, where?
I left my hometown of Tallahassee, Florida in 2012 for Vanderbilt University and never looked back. Most people I’ve met from Florida say “I’m sorry” when I tell them I grew up in Tallahassee. And for a good part of my college experience, I would laugh and reaffirm the idea that it’s a place where dreams go to die.
But recently, something weird happened.
The second weekend of spring break, I went home to attend my grandmother’s funeral. After 4 days in close quarters with 8 other spring breakers, the quietness of the small southern town was just what I needed. I actually enjoyed going back to Tally for the first time in 3.5 years.
Tallahassee is a jungle
But let me preface my recent change of heart with how I felt after 18 years in Tallahassee.
Tally is only known for a couple of things: Lindey’s Chicken and Gizzards, Florida State Poo-niversity, that one drive-thru liquor store, and the club known as Coliseum (yes, it’s spelled like that). While students who move to Tallahassee to go to Florida State have a grand time at one of the biggest party schools in the US, they have no idea what it’s like to grow up in Tallahassee.
We spent a lot of time at chain restaurants
Despite Tally’s uh…. southern charms, I stayed and worked in Nashville all three summers of college, only going home for two weeks of Christmas break each year. I missed my friends who stayed closer to home physically and emotionally, but every time I entered the city I felt a cloud of oppression (and humidity) sink over my chest.
I spent four years in high school running cross country and track devoting my life to becoming athletic enough to GTFO and go to college out of state. I dreamed of getting out of Florida, its dearth of intellectual stimulation or seasons, the home of Florida Man, and the place where the tallest building is shaped like a penis flanked by two balls.
A cool summer’s eve
And I did it. I moved to Nashville, a large and liberal city by comparison. There were things to do in Nashville! No one drove big trucks with huge exhaust pipes and dead deer in the back. Coming back to Tallahassee felt like handing over everything that I had worked for to make a life for myself in a new place, as if I were just back where I started.
But over the course of college, certain nostalgias of Tallahassee would creep back into my thoughts. While transplant FSU students wouldn’t have to grow up with my aforementioned complaints, they also missed gorgeous live oak trees, centuries old and covered in Spanish moss that kinda always seems to be swaying, even when it’s not windy. They missed swimming in freshwater springs and diving for clams at St. Mark’s beach, just an hour away. They missed Momo’s Pizza, going to Waffle House sober at 2 am, and building bonfires in the backyard. They missed running on miles and miles of trails, Georgia dirt roads, and lush greenways, all without seeing another soul.
And they missed forming real and fierce friendships that one can only form from a lack of things to do for young people. My best friends from Tallahassee will be my bridesmaids, if I ever get married.
Even in Nashville, a smallish city, there’s no escaping humanity unless you drive 2 hours out. You run on sidewalks and streets, pounding into the pavement and having to stop for traffic and breathe in exhaust. You live in an apartment or a dorm, filled with hundreds of other people. It’s much more exciting, sure. But there’s no sense of calm.
One time, some of my Vanderbilt friends wrote I <3 Tally on the back of my car in window paint. I never removed it, and it stayed on there for about a year. One time, this guy driving in a lane next to me rolls down his window and starts waving hysterically to get my attention. He had seen the declaration of love on my rear windshield and my Florida license plate and said “I’m from Tallahassee too! I grew up near Lack Jackson!” then he just drove off.
Only person I saw on this entire 3 hour hike
Would I want to live in Tallahassee again? No. Would I want to buy a small piece of property out there in the middle of nowhere and be with my best friends again, with that particular Florida spring sunlight perfectly slanting down every evening at 5:30 pm? Most certainly. See you soon, Tally.