Home in B-town

I wasn't always a fan of Bloomington. I moved here almost three years ago, but it's taken nearly as long for me to feel at ease. It wasn't that I liked my hometown better -- I'm from Carmel, Indiana -- but I guess there's always a breaking-in period, wherever you live, that makes you feel like a foreigner.\nIt wasn't a political thing. Yes, politics is a big deal to people here -- and sometimes you find yourself in the company of people with opinions that would make El Ché say, "whoa, dude, take it easy." Other times, you find yourself the one person in the room who has an opinion about something besides beer and sluts. I suppose it depends on how wisely you choose your company.\nIt wasn't a social thing, either. Yes, this town is stratified -- and you could easily find yourself caught in traffic between examples of extreme Indiana poverty and obscene East Coast excess -- but you just have to take it in stride. Some students struggle to make ends meet, and some students drive "beamers" with New York plates that say "Diorable." The world isn't fair, no matter where you are.\nMore than anything, it was just a feeling that I somehow didn't fit in -- everything about Bloomington was unfamiliar. And while it's not at all hostile, I just felt like an outsider. I didn't have a history here, so it was hard to feel at home.\nHowever, this summer my friend and I decided to adopt a radical fitness strategy. We would exercise vigorously every day, and go out drinking every night. The idea was that the drinking would keep your morale high, and force you to stop making excuses about your workouts. In doing this, I found myself out on the town every night, seeing just about every inch of this city.\nMy friend just left yesterday for the Army. From now on, he'll never be able to look at Bloomington as home. I have a year left, and then I'm going to be in the same boat. There are a lot of us who are in that boat -- and, like anyone else, I've rarely thought about it. I'm about to leave for two months of training, and I'm sure I'm going to miss this place terribly.\nI've rolled my eyes at this town before -- like when I've walked down Kirkwood and had 13-year-old townies try to bum my cigarettes; meanwhile, Kilroy's is like an Easter basket of pastel Polos atop over-tanned bros; People's Park is writhing in its own ooze and the same truck is screeching its tires at the same intersection over and over and over again. It can get old.\nWhat I'm sure of, however, is that no matter your interest or persuasion -- no matter your desire -- you can find something worthwhile in this town. It's taken me three years of sarcasm to get to this point, but, right as I'm about to leave for a spell, I can finally say I feel like I'm at home. I'm just embarrassed that it took me this long to figure it out.\nOh well. Here's to one more year.