How do you know when you're home sweet home?

You know that horribly awkward feeling you have when you attend someone’s wedding or birthday party but you don’t know anyone other than the host? A quick hello to the one person you’re comfortable with and then two hours of guessing what other people are talking about while they ignore you. (Ok so maybe if you’re an extrovert those  hours are spent starting a conga line and making 150 new friends, but for us introverts it’s a special kind of hell.)

I was a little worried that’s what moving to Tucson would feel like. And while I felt like a stranger here for a couple of weeks, I settled in much more quickly than I expected. Having never lived outside of Austin until five months ago, I started wondering what it is that makes a place feel like home. It’s not just “meeting people” or finally remembering that 1st Ave. is east of Stone Ave. (or is it west?). No, it’s a handful of milestones that together add up to Home Sweet Home.

5 Signs You’re at Home in a New City:

1. You run into people. There’s just something comforting about seeing someone you know in the Target checkout aisle.

2. You ask someone for a favor. I think I finally felt at ease here when we felt comfortable asking someone to take care of our dogs when we went out of town. (Thanks, Andrew and Sarah!)

3. You make impromptu plans with people. This is a big one for me. There are friends you make plans with and there are friends you can call up last minute just to hang out and eat Sonoran hot dogs. Both are great, the latter feel like home.

4. Your lame vs. cool radar gets back up to full strength. When I read the New York Times travel recommendations for spending 36 hours in Tucson, I knew enough about the city to roll my eyes at their suggestion to waste precious hours at the bland upscale shopping center La Encantada.

5. You know the newscasters’ names and can sing at least one local jingle. I’ve always been fascinated by local news and think it’s a weirdly entertaining way to learn more about a place. My favorite Tucson anchor names? Vinnie Vinzetta and Lou Raguse! And no I didn’t make those up. And of course being a jingle writer’s daughter and a world class jingle-singer-alonger, inadvertently memorizing a local company’s jingle (Tucson Federal Credit Union, anyone?) means I can kick back, relax and feel sure that I’m among friends.

Image by cloudsoup

Yesterday's Sweet Leaf Tea lid perfectly sums up my life right now. Who needs fortune cookies anymore?

I’m a lucky one. Part of the privileged few. A golden child. You guessed it—I’m a native Austinite.

Not only a native Austinite, but a South Austinite. Even more authentic!

My youth was filled with trips to Barton Springs and Fiesta, when it was still called Fiesta and held on Laguna Gloria’s storybook grounds. During the summers, I learned snorkeling and repelling at the Austin Nature Center day camp. My parents had season tickets for UT baseball and Lady Longhorn basketball games, so by the time I entered UT as a freshman, I had spent countless hours on campus.

I dined on Milto’s, Dan’s Hamburgers, Eastside Cafe and Nuevo Leon. I developed an alarmingly high tolerance for spicy foods. I partook of Austin City Limits and KGSR against my will, before I realized how cool they are.

I wondered about mythical places like The Arboretum and Pflugerville, and dreaded the intersection of South Lamar and Oltorf, the scene of a creepy mural on the side of a taxidermy shop. You know the one!

As I grew older, attended college, desperately searched for employment, got married, bought a house (in South Austin, natch) and adopted a dog, Austin remained home. It was a large and vital part of my identity, of how I saw myself. Austin and I were inextricably connected. It was my city. Austin was easy and charming and cool and perfect. It was the envy of all other cities! I never wanted to leave. Who leaves an oasis?

Then, after 28 years of blissful companionship, I got out. Packed up and left.

My husband was accepted to the master’s of landscape architecture program at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and we decided he needed to pursue that path. It was an agonizing decision because it meant leaving everything and everyone both of us knew and loved. But it was an easy one in that we felt 100 percent conviction that it was the right thing to do.

We’ve been in Tucson just over two months now and have been delightfully surprised by so many things: The striking friendliness of nearly everyone we meet; the glory of a sun-washed mountain and wide-open sky; the sheer abundance of locally owned pizza shops.

But the biggest surprise, the thing I truly never expected was this: I don’t miss Austin.

Don’t get me wrong—I very much miss my friends and family. And when I think about our lovely little house, which we still own, or missing the birth of my best friend’s baby, my heart aches. But I’m not longing for the city itself.

It hit me when I traveled there last month for work. (I’ve kept my job with UT’s business school and work from home in Tucson.) I couldn’t wait to get back to my city, hit the regular stops and spend time with my friends and family.

But from the moment my plane landed, I felt off, somehow. I wasn’t overwhelmed with kiss-the-ground gratitude at being back in the world’s greatest hometown. Suddenly I felt like an outsider, an out-of-town visitor passing through.

I spent 28 years cultivating and clinging to my citizenship, and it took less than six weeks for it to disintegrate.

And you know what? It’s kind of a relief. I don’t think I could survive three years in Tucson if Austin still had its hooks in me. I’m thankful that my new city is one that’s easy for me to like, and I’m excited about coming to feel more at home here in Tucson than I already do. I don’t want to live my life just filling time until I can get back to Austin.

Austin is a special place and I love it dearly. It is so much a part of who I am. But I’ve realized I’m in a season of my life when I get to allow another place to become a part of me and shape who I become.

I’m a lucky one, indeed.

Things I’ll Miss About Austin

1. Galaxy Cafe chicken chipotle wraps and french fries (both the regular and -sweet potato variety)
2. Alamo Drafthouse
3. Driving by the lake everyday
4. Working on campus
5. Food served from trailers
6. KGSR
7. All the weird murals
8. The most amazing friends and family a gal could ask for

Things I Gladly Say Goodbye To

1. The death-tunnel known as I-35
2. Spending 1 hour+ in the car everyday
3. Kerbey Lane and Magnolia waiters
4. An alarmingly unbalanced hipster-to-normal-person ratio
5. It’s not the heat, it’s the HUMIDITY

Things I Learned in the Move

1. When handed a walkie-talkie, I MUST talk trucker.
2. Harry Potter books on iTunes are insanely expensive. For $50, you’d better have Daniel Radcliffe, Robbie Coltrane AND Alan Rickman recreating Hogwart’s in my back seat.
3. Some parts of West Texas are exceptionally beautiful. Also, some parts are El Paso.
4. Most gas stations sell t-shirts with American flags and spray-painted tigers but not crossword puzzle books. As engrossing as tiger tees may be, they are a sorry means of keeping me awake on road trips.

Things I Already Like About Tucson

1. Flat roads and wide bike lanes. EVERYWHERE.
2. An apparent obsession with pizza. One spot near our house has three pizza places on one corner. Clearly a town with its priorities in order.
3. The mountain view out my front window. Yes that’s it below. Yes.
4. Really really really nice people. I mean really. I think it’s all the sunshine.
5. Two words: Spring Training. Hopefully Tucson can keep it around.
6. Anonymity. No one knows us here, no one is missing us or needs us. That can be lonely, and I’m sure it will soon change, but right now it’s kinda fun to just be on our own and start building up a new life.