There’s No Place Like Home

This post is #5 in my September Writing Project. Details are here.

Prompt: What do you love about where you live?

If you know me in real life, you know I could wax poetic about where I live for much longer than you care to listen. I love Cincinnati and I REALLY love the West Side. If you don’t live here and tell me you might make a trip, I will bombard you with suggestions for where to go and what to do. If you do live over here and I find out, I will bombard you with questions about your favorite places to go and things to do.

I just really freaking love it.

The West Side gets a bad rap around here. It’s not new like Liberty Township; it’s not upscale like Hyde Park; it’s not cool like OTR. The West Side is homey and lived in. Homey and lived in is apparently my jam. 

There’s a restaurant here called Wild Mike’s.

It’s a burger and wings joint, locally-owned, with three locations. We frequent the Delhi stop. And when I say frequent, I mean every Saturday. We might miss a week here and there, but if we do, our favorite waitresses, Karen and Tracey, ask what’s going on when we return the next week. Karen and Tracey figured out I was pregnant with Dude weeks before I told anyone because I didn’t order a Mountain Dew, my go-to drink (but only at Mike’s). They greet the kids with hugs, take them to visit the cooks for a quick hello, and know exactly what we’ll order before we say it.

Wild Mike’s is my Cheers. My kid-friendly, sex-obsessed-bartender-free Cheers. Call me Norm. I love feeling like I belong.

You always know someone at Kroger.

At the Kroger up the street, I have run into my aunt, a colleague, a local journalist I work with, my grandma, a guy from college, a woman from my boot camp class, one of my best friends, a girl I coached, and my old neighbor. That’s just who I remember off the top of my head. 

More often than not, I bump into someone I know while there and I like it that way. It gives me a happy feeling of community.

All these other things.

Mt Echo Park. Primavista. Incline Public House. Aston Oaks. Somm Wine Bar. Veracruz. Bloc Coffee Shop. Metallic Giraffe. West Side Brewing. The Crow’s Nest. Hollmeyer Orchards. Delhi Park. Harvest Home Festival. The original LaRosa’s. Bridgetown Finer Meats. The Pottery Place. Jenny’s Homemade Cookies. Lou Lou’s. Aroma’s. Buddha Barn. Henke’s. Black Sheep Public House. Revere Dance. 13 Below. Price Hill Chili. Muse Cafe. West Side Ball Park. Chandler’s Burger Bistro. Rockin Rooster Comics. Sebastian’s. College Hill Coffee Company. Bacall’s. Marty’s Hops n Vines. Madcap. Cabana. Warsaw Federal Incline Theater. The Covedale. Putz’s. Sweets n Eats. Maury’s Tiny Cove. Story Woods. Miami Whitewater. West Side Market.

I have no doubt I’ve forgotten things.

This place is home.

T’s parents are less than a mile away. His aunt and uncle live across the street. My brother and his girlfriend live 7 minutes away and my dad is 15 from here. Our daughter attends a school full of friendly, welcoming families. We have friends at Wild Mike’s and Kroger and Sweets n Eats and Bloc Coffee and many of those places listed above. 

It’s not like I didn’t leave. T and I lived downtown for awhile during our engagement and first year of marriage. It was awesome. We walked to work each day and stopped at Nada for dinner many nights on the way home. Our beautiful loft apartment had incredible windows and tons of character. It was fun to be in the city all the time. I still wish we lived there sometimes. There’s nothing like the energy of the city.

We moved back to the West Side during my mom’s illness. I wanted to be closer. And let’s be honest too; we were young and awful at budgeting. Living downtown was stretching us financially. (We probably could’ve given up all the trips to Nada and been fine.) I don’t regret moving back for a second. When I think about what’s most important to me, it’s my husband and kiddos. When I think about what’s best for them, it’s being on the West Side where we can be surrounded by friends and family.