Getting Brought Up Differently

“Where I come from you kids are always polite to your elders,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled out of my housing complex. It was a common phrase I have heard over and over again since I moved here. It always comes from older people set in their ways.

I parked my car in a rush. I quickly walked into the corner store that was down the road from my house. I hadn’t gotten used to having to drive to a place that was so close to where I lived, but around the area I just moved to it was a necessity. I wouldn’t call it a bad neighborhood, it was actually one of the better ones for the city, but it definitely wasn’t a safe place to be walking around. In order to cross one road, you had to walk over a minimum of four lanes and a grass median. I was used to crossing barely used two lane roads filled with more potholes than cars. I enjoyed walking places, but not enough to risk life or limb. 

I climbed out of my car and double checked to make sure I locked it. Locking it was also a new necessity to me. I was used to being able to leave it unlocked for at least a few minutes while I ran into the store. Sometimes I would even leave it unlocked for an entire night after it had escaped my thoughts to lock it up. Not any more though.

As I walked around my car to get into the store, I admired my shiny new license plate. It had been a long time since I had to get one. I had my old one since I started driving at sixteen, but a new state, a new plate. I grabbed the last-minute toiletries that I went to the store for and headed to the counter. I gave the cashier a polite smile while I set my things down on the counter. 

“Good morning,” I forcefully said. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m good. Will that be all ma’am?” She replied in a bored tone. I grew up thinking it was a nice thing to do, to respond to someone else’s “how are you” with a response along the lines of “I’m good, how are you?” but not here. They care more about pretending to be nice than actually being nice. They throw in an unnecessary amount of “sirs'' and “ma’am’s”, pretending it makes up for all the displeasure they have in their life. 

I left the register with a slight shake of my head. It felt strange knowing I was a nice person, but because these people were used to faux niceness, I came off rude to them. I worked my way towards the door and accidentally ran into someone.

“I’m so sorry!” I rushed out after I accidentally bumped into the other person exiting the store. I felt embarrassed, like I made a fool out of myself.

I got a mumbled out “whatever” in return as he walked away. No one in the store gave us a second glance.  It was apparent to me then that the politeness from these people was all fake. Sugary sweet “ma’am’s” and sneers candy coated in pleasantries. I had to keep reminding myself that it was something I would have to get used to.

I drive back to my house deep in thought. It was hard to wrap my head around how different everything was here. It’s weird to think that different parts of a single country could be so drastically different from each other. Just a three-hour flight can bring you to a destination unlike one you’ve ever lived in. It was going to be a lot for me to get used to. Two places can be so different, yet exactly the same. 

In a way it felt better being an outsider here. Back home everyone knew who I was and what I had done. Actions I couldn’t change and people I couldn’t persuade to think of me differently is what I left behind. At least here the only reason I stood out was because I was quite literally an outsider. They could tell in the way I walk and talk that I wasn’t from here, but those are actions I can train out of myself to better fit in.

I got home after a quick two-minute ride home. I pulled into my driveway, parked the car, turned it off, and just sat for a minute. My neighbor across the street was out. I braced myself for impact and got out of the car, grocery bag in hand. 

“That’s a beautiful old house you bought. I knew the last owners. A nice old couple,” she said to me from across the street as she watered her plants. I knew it was coming, but I still had to stop myself from laughing out loud. The house I bought was built in the 90’s. I’m older than the house and these people here constitute it as old. My realtor said the same thing to me. He called the house old and charming. To me, a house less than 100 years old was new. Where I grew up half the houses were built before indoor plumbing became the norm. 

“I knew it was a keeper as soon as I saw it,” I told her with a smile that bordered a grimace. I just wanted the conversation to end. I wasn’t the type of person to talk to strangers if I wasn’t in the mood to. It was always ingrained in me that at no matter what age you were you just didn’t talk to strangers at random. It was always considered bad manners to interrupt what someone was doing. Down here, every stranger wants to start a conversation with you, no matter how obvious you make it that you don’t want to. It’s another example that they use to make it seem like they’re the nicest people in the country. They never realize how rude it can come across.

With every person I talked to, I felt more and more like I didn’t fit in. It showed in every move I made and conversation I had. I felt like an outsider more now than I ever had before, and that was really saying something. I never fit in growing up and it appears that I will never fit in the way I had planned to. I knew as soon as I left my hometown, I would be thrust into a world that was unlike any I had lived in before, but I knew one thing for sure, I would learn to fit in and love it here, for myself.