Durham has been that friend for me.
When I first moved here, I absolutely hated Durham. I was raised in Spartanburg, SC, and throughout my teenage years, the plan was to stay in Spartanburg and, respectively, die there. It never occurred to me that something would take me away from my hometown.
That something turned out to be my husband.
Justin got a job right out of college at Duke. He moved up to Durham and started work in June of 2009. I joined him in January 2010, right after I graduated college.
Even though I was super excited to live with Justin, my fiancé at the time, in a new city away from my parents, after the first few weeks, I became depressed. I'm not sure I was homesick, not 100 percent anyway, but something was missing. At the time, I thought it was Spartanburg. I felt like my hometown, the city I loved so much, had been taken away from me. And it was all Durham's fault.
I started to realize that the one-bedroom apartment, the same drive to take Justin to work every morning, and Durham in general, were not temporary. Justin didn't just get a job working retail somewhere, this was Duke! This was a big-boy job. This job was anything but temporary. I realized I was going to live in Durham for the rest of my life. Our children would be born in Duke Hospital. They would go to school here. We would have Christmas in our home in Durham, and birthday parties at the facilities Durham offered.
All of these things I was realizing started to really overwhelm me. After an entire lifetime, two decades and some change, of planning my life around Spartanburg, I now had to start over. I had to start over somewhere I didn't choose to live, and automatically didn't like because it wasn't Spartanburg.
And so, I sat in my apartment, day after day, with the blinds shut, being mad that I had to live in this God-forsaken town.
This was, of course, until the move happened.
We moved from Justin's apartment into another apartment on the other side of town in May 2010. This was exactly what I needed to turn my view of Durham around. Our previous apartment wasn't in the bad part of Durham, but it was a pretty ghetto little complex. I didn't like it when we lived in it, and it was one of the reasons I didn't do anything; I was scared to leave or do anything by myself.
(Don't worry, this story has a happy ending!)
Our next (and current) apartment was not even 5 minutes away from downtown. Ah-ha! There was finally something I could love about this place. Any city's downtown and I get along real well. And Durham's is banging. Eventually, I found several things about Durham to love, like the Carolina Theater, Bennett Pointe Grill, the Durham County Library, The American Tobacco Campus, and especially Ninth Street.
Durham is a beautiful town, and Justin and I are thinking it may be a good enough place to raise our family someday. I really love it here, and I'm almost mad now that it took me so long to realize it or appreciate Durham for what it is. I spent so much time during those first few months of living here being mad at Durham for not being Spartanburg. I just didn't give it a chance, and once I did, Durham didn't let me down.
Spartanburg is great, and I still love to visit and feel homesick sometimes. Now, I look at Spartanburg as my egg. It incubated me, and kept me safe and prepared me to be strong. But Durham gave me some wings to fly with. I've learned and experienced new things that I probably never would have been able to do if it had not been for this move that happened almost three years ago.
Our relationship was rocky at first, but now Durham isn't just an awkward friend anymore. Durham has something that I love, no matter what my current interests or obsessions are, and can cater to almost anything I want to eat, see, or do.
Durham just seems to get me. We're not just friends. Our relationship isn't weird; now that I've given it a chance, it's better than good. Durham and me, we're besties.
Just some pictures from downtown and the ATC last weekend. Ah, love.
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