west

I've always dreaded the "Where are you from?" question.

In an eight-year span, I've moved ten times. I've lived in four states and two countries, attending six different school districts before graduating from high school. In all actuality, I don't know where I'm from. But no one particularly cares to hear the whole convoluted history of my residency, so I usually just say, "Utah."

Then, the other night, I had an epiphany. Debating idioms, someone told me, "We say it differently back East. You come from the West."

And a voice inside me said, yes.

I come from Uintah cattle-ranches and immigrant football clubs.

I come from potato farmers and Mexican polygamist-colonists.

I am the product of fat handcart girls and hard-headed Danes, generations of half-mad people carving out a living in the blizzarding desert.

I come from ideals of freedom and diversity and friendliness. I come from ruggedly beautiful country.

I come from the place that people risk their lives to come to, where dreams shine brighter than the journey and are sometimes never realized.

I am from the West, the American West. And, for the first time in my life, I am happy to be so.

Where I'm from isn't who I am. But, at the same time, it is. I had to come to Wyoming to brush the Western chip off my shoulder and learn to love my big-sky, laborious heritage.

Still spitting politics. Still feminizing. Still me. But I'm now more at ease with my roots and myself. And it's a good place to be.