I HEART NE. NOT NY. NEW ENGLAND.

My entire life, I’ve tried to find ways to hate living in New England.

As an eldest daughter, I’ve always felt it was my duty to run away from my small Connecticut town and establish a presence somewhere new.

I dreamed of working at surf shops in Santa Barbara, backpacking across the Swedish alps, hiking the Pacific northwest.

As my 17-year-old self began to look at colleges, I tried to imagine myself studying for my final exams under a narrow palm tree. I dreamed about the idea of constant sunshine, and the ability to have my tanned, olive skin year-round.

However, there is something about New England that, to put it simply, just sticks with you.

There’s a resilience that it holds. A sense of recovery and rejuvenation. It’s a feeling so addictive that it seems like a drug.

Like the first real day of spring in April, when the yellow daffodils begin to sprout, and you wake up to the birds chirping.

Where you can leave the house wearing nothing but a light sweater, and you finally don’t see your breath in the air in front of you as you exhale.   

 When your routine drive to the grocery store is suddenly transformed before your eyes, the trees covered in shades of scarlet and ochre , and the most impressive shades of yellow.

 Despite my long search for a new place I could call home, nowhere else has truly felt like it.

I cursed and sighed as I walked around my Massachusetts college in my L.L. Bean boots and amusingly large puffer coat.

I spent months angry about my chapped lips and having to reapply generous amounts of Aquaphor each day.

Being a New Englander has shown me that there is often a sense of beauty during the dark times.

Although the sun might set at 4:45PM, it doesn’t mean that the sun will never come out again.

The ground freezes. The trees become barren. The world becomes cold.

However, each year, the earth flawlessly recovers. Days of sunshine come back, the flowers still blossom, my favorite beaches (despite rocky and filled with shells) become warm enough for swimming each summer.

Growing up in such a beautiful, multi-dimensional, and adaptable place has shaped who I am. It has provided me with a community. Even a routine, if you will.

Collectively, we stare in awe at the first snowfall. We burst with excitement when the lakes finally freeze enough to warrant ice-skating. Yet, we complain all as Punxsutawney Phil demands we’ll get another 6 weeks of winter.

As corny as it sounds, people are right to dream about the life you see in Stars Hollow. While slightly unrealistic, Gilmore Girls did get one thing straight – there is something magical about being in New England.

 The summers, the inevitable winters. The matching hats and gloves, holding hands with your love while you stroll down a quaint town.

There is nothing truly like it.

And as my favorite artist Noah Kahan once said,

“I’m mean because I grew up in New England…”

And to be quite honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way.