Where I'm From

For the past seven years, answering where I'm from hasn't been easy. For starters I'd always get confused... Do people want to know where I'm from?.. or where I'm from from.. Do I answer with the name of a town in New Jersey? The only state I'd ever lived in? Do I answer with Trinidad and Tobago? The country, whose national anthem my parents, aunts, grandmother and cousins still sing every August 31? (Independence Day!! Wayyyy!) Do I mention how its kind of like Jamaica, and let the exceptions trail off to wherever my listener's interest decided to leave to.. Do I say I'm from Westwood? Which, isn't a lie; I was born, and spent 11 years of my life in Westwood, New Jersey. A white, woodsy town, with a railroad track that went straight through. I lived between the park and a Shoprite... I'd only ever go to the park by myself though, because to get to Shoprite I had to cross a junction and up through that point I had been afraid of crossing, even, one-way streets.

Three years into living in Secaucus, however, I didn't feel like I could say I was from Westwood anymore. I would never forget the routes I'd take to the elementary school, down and through Kinderkamack Road , past the bus lots, the hospital where I was born not too far off, past the mini park where I'd hardly play except f I was invited there by Shannon or Roy, past the field, that would come alive with toddlers and "big kids" on field days. but!.. Well, no one ever knew where Westwood was, so I'd say that it's somewhere in the northwest.. but what seventh grader from Secaucus knew about northwest Jersey? and who really wanted to know? Westwood became something only of my memories; I fell out of contact with those friends, our rare drive-by visits to our old house revealed an entirely new family, comfortable with their lives, they made the house look different. Each time we visted it felt less and less like our old home and more like some old house. So it was easier to say I was from Secaucus. but it still didn't feel right.

I still can't answer where I'm from I'm from, maybe it'd be easier in the form of a poem or something more prosy. I wrote my College application essay on "home." There I delve more into my living situation in Secaucus and my long term identification with the word "home". I thought I'd introduce to you a primary contributor to my identity crisis. Bienvenidas boo boo. <3

---