I’ve gotten paler and seem to walk faster. Flip-flops have been replaced by rainboots and Chipotle or Qdoba is really the closest thing to Mexican food I can find. I’m starting to think J.Crew is more of a cult than a clothing store, and I’ve accepted that people actually walk on escalators. I attribute every brain malfunction to frost bite and check the weather report on a freakish basis. I’m from California, and over winter break, I realized just how different my life is on the East Coast.
When I stepped onto the Georgetown campus for the first time this past August I went into culture shock. I was overwhelmed by the myriad of salmon-colored J.Crew shorts, the same Longchamp bag in every color under the sun and naturally, Sperry Top-Siders. Where I’m from, salmon is a fish, not a color. And typically, boys tend to avoid wearing anything more than shorts and a t-shirt on any given day. But there I was, walking to class overhearing bromance conversations about Vineyard Vines flip-flops and coordinated shopping dates.
The walk itself was a different experience altogether. In California, we stroll at a leisurely pace, but here, the default pace is somewhere between speed walk and light jog. Maybe East Coasters walk with more purpose, or maybe it’s just colder outside.
Returning to my favorite coffee shop in L.A., I sat in my standard corner. To the left, was a woman in her eighties, straight ahead a grown man painting in water colors, and to the right, middle schoolers ruffling through a backpack to find something illegal, probably firecrackers from Chinatown. I always order coffee from the same guy with gaged ears, countless tattoos, and a yellowish streak in his hair. He always proceeds to ask me about my day; this time, we had an entire conversation about the new green tea mints he tried.
That, I think, is the biggest difference between the two coasts. We in California are weirder. At Georgetown, I’ve talked politics and listened to drunken rambles in different languages. It’s a level of sophistication that I know I was lacking back home. But at the same time, the quirkiness that runs rampant in Los Angeles is what I miss the most.
And even though the differences are readily apparent and occasionally overwhelming, I realize that the two shouldn’t be compared. You can’t compare apples to oranges, surfboards to snowboards, or water polo to lacrosse. I understand now that while the regions and their inhabitants are decidedly diverse, neither is better or worse. The differences simply epitomize why I left California—to try something new.
But what had I gotten myself into? After merely two days on campus, I found myself crouched in my room, on the phone with my best friend, trying to scheme my way back to my sunny suburb of Los Angeles. Coming from a school with four thousand other students, I was used to everyone having a quirk. But here, whenever I stepped outside I encountered a seemingly perfect, cookie-cutter world. Every girl was dressed perfectly, smiles were ubiquitous, and it seemed as though I was the weird girl, dropped in an adolescent version of The Stepford Wives. But as I started talking to the perfect, East Coast girl bots, I realized that beyond those beautiful pearls and matching bow, she was just as weird as I am. I may shuffle into a room and embody a typical Californian free spirit, but deep down, underneath the J.Crew polo, I know she wasn’t clone I thought she was.
And maybe that’s it. What I had expected, the image that was the basis of my intimidation was simply a façade. The differences that made me feel at times too awkward for my own good, ultimately forced me to escape from the shell in which I had grown up. The uneasiness that plagued my first semester of Georgetown made me accept that yes, it is different: the people, the place, the culture. But I left California for a change—not necessarily to change myself, but at least to expand my comfort zone, to understand more than my L.A. bubble. And if my middle school yearbooks are any indication, the truth is that to grow is to feel awkward.
I’ve become so accustomed to Eastern ways that I cross the street wherever I want—I’ve learned that crosswalks are more of a suggestion than a requirement. The sun is now a tenacious enemy, as my translucent skin is no longer a match for the fierce 75-degree January heat of the Mid-Atlantic region. Hopefully, I’ll make it through the winter alive. I got a second Snuggie for Christmas, so there’s a chance.
I love this piece! I’m from Cali and I went through exactly the same thing.