An Odd Homesickness

I'm not known for bouts of homesickness. When I started college, it took several weeks before it really hit me; when I moved out here, there was more of the same. Occasionally, though, a conversation or news story or random thought will hit me just right and WHAM! Homesickness.

As anyone who has met me can likely tell, I love love LOVE my home state. I am more patriotic and loyal toward my birth state than I am toward my home country. It's one of those things -- the place tends to inspire fierce loyalty or fierce loathing, and lucky for me it's the former in my own life.

I will take any opportunity I can to talk about the people and places back west, and while I know this can get tiresome it's something I can't always help. I'm not from around here; most of my friends are. Whenever they talk about local things, they are talking about home. But I'm a transplant -- and it takes special occasions and topics in order for me to get to say much about where I'm from (at least for it to be in context).

The thing is -- and I've said this before -- I tend to get more homesick for Rapid City, even though I only went to school there, than the Sioux Falls area where I grew up. It's gotten to be fairly normal for me to lapse into a couple minutes of deep thought about the Hills, but it's rare for me to miss much of anything I associate with high school.

Today, though, I found out that this year's senior class elected an openly gay homecoming king, and I was rather proud of the school. My mom then pointed out that my class elected a homecoming king whose father is Iraqi -- and this only a few short weeks after 9/11.

You know, the town might be a bit backward from time to time, but the students are farther ahead on things than we usually realize. Aside from the stereotypical high school moments, they can actually be pretty accepting.

I could go for more moments of homesickness if they manage to be similarly inspired.