All the Way Out Here

As many of you may already know, I am no longer living in California. At the end of May, I packed up all of my belongings, shoved them (and I mean shoved) into my tiny Mini-Cooper, and drove through Nevada, through Utah, through Colorado, through Kansas (boring), and into Missouri. Kansas City, Missouri to be precise. I have been in Kansas City for nearly 4 months now, and by far, the question I hear the most is...

"What are you doing all the way out here?"

If I had a dollar every time I was asked this question over the past few months, I probably would have been able to pay a few months rent with it. On a side note, rent in MO is so much cheaper than in CA. But, the point still stands: I was asked this question a lot. Initially, I was annoyed at the question. However, as I was asked the question again and again and again, I had to take a step back, pause, and ask some questions. What was meant by the phrase,"all the way out here"? Why was I getting annoyed? In order to answer these questions, I dove deep into discussion with friends, baristas, fellow line-standers, food truck workers, friends' friends, gym people. I introspected (can I use that word as a past-tense verb?) long and hard. Below, are my musings broken up by question. They are incomplete, as it would be impossible to fully elaborate on these thoughts in a single blog post.

What was meant by the phrase, "all the way out here"?

In other words, what sort of distance was perceived to exist between California and Missouri? While physical distance is an obvious answer, there are other, more nuanced ways of understanding the concept of distance. I sought to understand those nuances.

The first category of distance that came to mind was physical distance. People were constantly asking about whether I drove or flew to Missouri. And often, when I responded that I had driven, I was met with gasps of surprise and disbelief. "That must've taken forever!" one woman at a coffee shop (rudely eavesdropping on my conversation with a friend) exclaimed. "How far of a drive is that??" was another common response I received. People seemed shocked that I had driven the physical distance between the two states. And while California was pretty far away from Missouri, I could have moved across the country, to Boston for instance. It wasn't impossible that I had made the drive. The frequency of the question caused me to think that there were more, nuanced reasons. Physical distance, it seemed, was one way of understanding the phrase "all the way out here", but it was exactly that. One way. What were the others?

During a particularly dialogic conversation with a barista, I asked him, "Why are you so surprised that I moved here from California?" His response provided the framework I would use to understand the next category of distance. He said, "Well, you see, there's the physical distance sure...but I'm more surprised by-surprised isn't the right word...I'm more intrigued by the amount of cultural distance you must be experiencing. Why in the world would you ever decide to move to Kansas City, Missouri?" Very rarely in life does the perfect answer to a question get handed to you. "Wait! STOP. Give me a second. *I pull out my notebook, jot down what he said, snap it shut* Sorry about that. It's just that you answered a question I've been trying to figure out." He replies, "And what question would that be?" My response, "The distance, or as you put it, the cultural distance between Cali and Missouri." We then dove into a conversation about how California and Missouri were so very culturally different. More on this in a future blog post. There's too much to put in this one paragraph.

Why was I getting annoyed?

Maybe it was just my inability/unwillingness to embrace a new journey and place. Maybe it was my stubbornness and my refusal to let California go. Who knows? All I knew was that I was getting more annoyed each time someone new asked me, "What are you doing all the way out here?" After some time, I arrived at an answer. I was getting annoyed because the question reminded me of how far away I was from home, or rather, how far away I felt from home. It impressed upon me the necessity to carve out a life for myself here in Kansas City and all the stresses that accompany that task. It exacerbated my sense of discomfort, causing me to feel over and over again like a foreigner in a city that was to be my new home. For a while, I hated the discomfort. But, as the weeks drew on, and I became ever so slowly accustomed to my life here in Kansas City, I realized that I was slowly beginning to feel more at home.

I know, this was an abrupt ending to a less-than-satisfactory account of the past few months. I've left out my reasons for moving to KC, I've left out various stories, I've left out the details of my day-to-day, but all for good reason. I'll be addressing all those topics and more in future blog posts. For now, I think this post suffices. I hope this was a pleasure for you to read. It was for me to write.

With the colour of my emotions,

Jeremiah Kim