O States

So I've lived in all the O states. There are three: Ohio, Oklahoma, and Oregon. I lived in them in alphabetical order.





Once upon a time (like eight years ago), I had just completed a master's degree in a social sciences discipline with few real-world job prospects. Initially, I had intended to pursue the PhD and enter a life of academia. I was even accepted into the doctoral program. However, I realized that I did not want job prospects to be the deciding factor of where I lived; I did not want to live in Terribletown, North Crapsatucky just because it was the only place hiring a professor in my field. Thus, rather than travel farther down the academic road, I followed my boyfriend at the time to Oklahoma, where he had accepted a non-permanent, contract position.

There were numerous things I despised about Oklahoma. In fact, I could create a blog devoted solely to the things I despised about Oklahoma, but I won't. I won't dwell on the negative, because there were things I really loved about Oklahoma. I loved that when I finally met cool people, they were super cool. They were some of the most open-minded, accepting, genuinely loving people I've ever met. I loved how the wide, flat horizons of the Oklahoma prairie offered me some of the best sunsets of my life.  I loved the free feeling of driving down red dirt roads and seeing the rubbish and miscellany of rural life: Everything from broken down farm equipment to a random camel in a field became subjects of my amateur photographs.

Truck from the '40s or '50s--rusted, corroded, and missing a headlight--abandoned on someone's property in rural Oklahoma.

Plus, one of those "lifetime scrapbook experiences" happened to me during my time in Oklahoma. My ex and I took a road trip that led us back home through the Oklahoma panhandle, known in the parlance of the region as "No Man's Land." Driving down a two lane highway through the former Dust Bowl, I first experienced a feeling of awe at how vast my country was and how pockets of untainted, untouched places still exist here. We drove for hundreds of miles without signals reaching our cell phones, and I felt inspired, not fearful, that I could step out of the car and simply live without anyone's knowledge but my own.

But at the time, I did not recognize the moments my heart was thriving. Even when I landed a lucky job opportunity that eventually led me to my current field, I did not think that years later, I would owe my career to my brief time living in Oklahoma. When my relationship with my boyfriend crumbled and we broke up, I thought more about my feelings of being stranded within Oklahoma than how we might have kept ourselves in an unhappy relationship without Oklahoma.

It took a few post-Oklahoma years for me to admit the state really isn't so bad, and that overall, my experience there helped shape me. Would I live there again? Definitely not. But do I cherish the memories I have from my time there? Now I do.

I had a happy chuckle, then, when M and I decided we would move to Oregon.  "You know," I said, "this will mean I've lived in all the O states, and in alphabetical order, no less: Ohio, then Oklahoma, now Oregon."  M just sort of nodded and mumbled, "Oh yeah, that's true, huh?"  I suppose it's not all that impressive; after all, it's not like I started collecting state residencies from Alabama and Alaska on down the line to Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Still, there's a neatness and order to the coincidence of it that pleases me. Actually, a little corner of my brain wonders if it's even a coincidence at all. At the very least, it is enough star-alignment for me to trust in the process, even when it is hard. We are where we are, and I choose to believe it's because we should be. And there is a lot of "where we are" for us to explore.