Photo by: Oscar Herrera
Moving is the worst. It is also the best. It can lead to some of the best moments of your life and the most devastating pain of being away from a place you’ve grown up in.
I had never been in love with a place until I moved to Houston at the start of my freshman year in 2021.
Starting my undergraduate career, in the midst of a global pandemic, in a city I had never been in was scary.
However, in the three years I have lived in Houston, I proudly call it home.
At first, Houston was a foreign land to me. I had never gotten to explore the campus and city due to the restrictions caused by COVID-19. Being left alone in an unknown city with no friends or family was devastating and daunting.
I cried a lot. I explored the campus and tried making new friends. Then slowly, I ventured out of campus and dealt with Houston’s infamous traffic to explore the city. It was hard but soon enough, Houston was no longer a strange city, but a place I started to explore and familiarize myself with.
I learned to love the accessibility to concerts and great restaurants for brunch and learned to hate driving on Allen Parkway or through Montrose. Partaking in the Houston Rodeo, visiting NASA and driving through downtown Houston at night, made the city feel big enough to be human.
Every day I found something I loved in Houston and fell in love with the city more and more. It has also been great for my life professionally, the biggest reason why I decided to go to UH. I have worked as a news intern at Community Impact and Houston Public Media, two places I never would have gotten the chance to work at if I hadn’t been at UH.
However, while being in the city has been exceptional for my career, living away from my hometown has been difficult. Moving away from your family is harder than you realize. I have missed important moments like birthdays and festivals, simply because I am at school.
The distance between my hometown, Nacogdoches and Houston is merely 154 miles, a two-and-a-half-hour drive. While the physical distance doesn’t seem drastic, the two cities are worlds apart when it comes to everything else.
At my high school in Garrison ISD, I was the only Indian kid and with that came the uncomfortable questions and bullying. If being the new kid is hard, just imagine being the new kid from the other side of the Atlantic. I had a hard time making my transition not only from British to American English but also learning how to fit in.
No matter how much I tried to fit in, I could never picture myself in the small town I had been living in. I found lifelong friends and a new appreciation for life at Garrison. But I still felt like an outsider, like a puzzle piece not belonging to the puzzle set it has been stored with.
However, in the three-odd years I have lived in Houston, I have found a place I am proud to call home. There is more than just one Indian girl on campus and being in Houston gave me a chance to live amongst not only my own but other cultures as well.
In Houston, I no longer feel like a stranger. I have found a new home, new friends and a new appreciation for life.
Houston is just as much of a home to me as Nacogdoches is. My family is there but my heart belongs to H-Town.
I am still finding my place in the world, discovering who I am and learning new things about myself as well as Houston. I may not know where I will be in a few years, but I do know that I will always call Houston my home.
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