If you read our Christmas letter this week and think that life in California is wonderful, wonderful, you have a sanitized, super-cheerful version of reality. I kindof hit a low point this week, so I figured what the heck, I should give everyone a brutally honest picture of how things are. Click below to read my long update, or come back tomorrow for pictures…
This move has been our hardest yet. I do not yet (and hopefully will never) hate California as much as I loathe Chicago, but at least in Chicago, we were driving distance from both families, and I had a very dear college friend whose weekly visits probably kept me from clinical depression. The only old friends we have in SoCal are not close enough to just call up and come hang out randomly. I did not adequately anticipate how severe the culture shock here would be or how very lonely I would feel.
I really can’t think of anything about California culture that I like. Yes, the weather is nice, but I happen to be one of those strange people who loves seasons, and we haven’t really seen much of them here. After four months’ residence in this state, I can assert that every stereotype of shallow Californians that you see on TV is absolutely true. Not everyone is like them, but most SoCal natives I’ve met are shallow, image-obsessed, self-focused (at the expense of their own children), superficially friendly but really uninterested in relationships, and unwilling to initiate or often even reciprocate overtures of friendship. Think all the mean kids in Veronica Mars, with the expensive clothes and the plastic surgery. Their attitude is best expressed in the way they deign to interact with newcomers: “Don’t you just love it here?!” No interest in asking if you like it here, just the smug assumption that everyone must love Southern California because Southern Californians do. Needless to say, everyone I’ve connected with so far has been a transplant, or at least from Orange County.
I’m not the only one who feels this way. As I’ve talked to other transplants, the first thing that everyone says is that it’s hard to break in here. You have to do all the initiating, often for years. Most of the churches we’ve visited (seven or eight…I’ve lost track) are no different. People don’t make eye contact, they don’t introduce themselves, and they certainly don’t invite you into their homes to get to know you better. Besides a couple Pepperdine colleagues, I’ve only been inside two homes, and they are both friends-of-friends (and transplants!) who were tasked by our mutual friends to reach out to us. At my MOPS table (where the discussions center around when to get your tummy tuck, the best hormone therapy for weight loss, and planning your kid’s schedule around your workouts), a native overheard me sharing my struggles to fit in with another midwestern transplant. The native agreed with me that it’s hard to fit in here, but you get used to it, and that you just have to be assertive to get to know people. Um, shouldn’t the church, at the very least, be a welcoming place? This week I went to the park to join a homeschool play group. I made eye contact. I introduced myself. I tried to strike up conversation, mentioning our babies, our older kids, and passing down carseats. I don’t know what else I could have done without getting unpleasantly aggressive. It was like I was invisible, or maybe not thin enough or pretty enough to be worth talking to. Tommy wasn’t having any better luck on the playground, so I packed us up and came home, getting the girls down for naps before dissolving in tears with Tommy as we talked about how much we miss Home–State College–and all of our friends there. (That’s when he hugged me and told me that God wants us to move to lots of places, so we shouldn’t cry. I love that kid.)
So yeah, it’s been hard, but hopefully things are looking up. MOPS has been a bust except the one transplant I met there who is also from the midwest, has lived all over, and hated Chicago as much as I did. (She also disapproves of plastic surgery before age 25.) She introduced me to Community Bible Study, which has been much friendlier. One girl in my small group got my number and called to invite me to her MOPS at a different church. (Needless to say, I’m making the switch at the semester.) A mom with a boy Tommy’s age and a girl Elizabeth’s age sensed I was a fellow homeschooler and midwesterner while we were picking our kids up (apparently the smiling eye contact is the giveaway), and she and I have exchanged a couple emails that have me hopeful. Our seventh (or eighth?) church feels a lot more like our home churches, and when I called the church secretary this afternoon, she actually remembered me and all our names. So we have some hope there.
And I have to be honest, I do love Sprouts. It’s a grocery store that kindof reminds me of Wegmans, Trader Joes, and Whole Foods all rolled into one, but with the cheapest prices in town. The staff is so friendly, and I have literally gone there on tough days just to have someone smile at me.
And, very importantly, Derek is enjoying his job. The other junior faculty members are great, and I sense that they’re really going to be friends. I don’t have any doubt that Derek is meant to be a law professor, and since this was our only option, I know that God wants us here, at least for now. (As for the future, well…the thought of my girls growing up in this image-obsessed culture, with friends getting plastic surgery in high school, has me praying desperately that we’ll be back in the midwest by then.)
So we’re making do here, as Derek says. I’m trying to keep a stiff upper lip and not fixate on how many days left before we’re back in MI for Christmas. Comparisons to the dear midwestern college towns we’d rather be in are pretty much unfruitful at this point. As acquaintances become friends, we’ll hopefully feel less lonely, and in the meantime, we are incredibly thankful for facebook, google chat, and blogs, which are my lifeline on some particularly hard days.
Thank you for being willing to be so brutally honest. I am feeling a lot of same things, and it’s forcing me to take a hard look about what I believe about God. We will continue to pray for you guys to adjust and find friends.
Oh Emily…I’m so sorry about your difficulties in southern California. You describe the culture to a T. But there are also a lot of good people there and I am praying they find you. We came upon an amazing church in the OC full of middle-aged home school people who were so genuine and loved the Lord dearly. So the people are out there. Don’t despair. The joy of the Lord is your strength and He will give the desires of your heart (in this case, real fellowship).
Your description of Sprouts made me so very happy. I am a devoted fan for all the reasons you mentioned! We lived across the street from a Sprouts in Arizona. I knew all the employees by name and they knew me and my kids. I am embarrassed to say this, but I actually cried tears over leaving my Sprouts. On my last trip there, they were out of the deep-discount organic ground beef. The butcher said I had to come back later, but then he came running up while I was checking out with five pounds of organic ground sirloin priced like ground beef as a special gift for me! ::sigh::
So sorry that you are so lonely! 🙁 I can’t imagine moving to such a shallow, superficial place. But as Bethany said, there must be more kindred spirits out there. The more I move around, the more I realize how important a good community of genuine, caring people is and how blessed we were at Hillsdale to have that. Dear friends who are far away can’t quite compensate for not having people who have the same values and goals in your everyday life. I’ll be praying that you find those kindred spirits!
I can so relate…not in the CA aspect, since I love CA…but probably mainly bc family is there : ) but in the moving aspect…I am so tired of moving…and we are leaving again in a week! I always liked it until I had kids…moving with kids is soooo hard…and I only have 2!!! I have enjoyed your blog so much this year bc is is one of my connections with the uS. (it is so hard to call home with the 5 hour time difference on skype!) I will start praying for you guys as I read from now on…
I don’t think I gave this to you http://withshoutsofjoy.wordpress.com/
I probably won’t post much with all my traveling in the next month, but it should be pretty interesting come jan when I am stuck in Grenada….AHHHHHHHHH
Christine, love your blog! Looking forward to following it now!