There’s a myth I’ve carried in my bones for most of my life—the myth of “better.” The idea that something else, somewhere else, someone else would fix the ache I was too afraid to name. That somewhere beyond the present moment, beyond what I could touch, was a life more suited for me. A climate more bearable, a culture more familiar, a version of me more whole.

When I moved from the Chicagoland suburbs to the South, it wasn’t just geography that shifted—it was identity. At first, I told myself it was just logistics: a fresh start and new opportunities. And that was all true. But no one talks about the grief that comes with reinvention. No one prepares you for the way you’ll miss a certain grocery store, or the smell of the air after it rains in your hometown. No one tells you that homesickness isn’t just for the people and place you left behind—it’s for the version of yourself that felt understood in that space.

In the North, I had seasons I could count on like old friends. The thaw of spring was a promise kept, the burst of summer felt earned after long winters. Autumn, with its crisp air and golden leaves, was a familiar exhale. Even winter, brutal as it was, had a rhythm I’d grown to understand. It mirrored my own inner cycles: retreat, reflection, rebirth.

But now, I live in a place where the seasons blur, where summer stretches long and humid and unforgiving. And something about that permanence—the way it clings and weighs and doesn’t let up—makes me long for the change I used to take for granted. There are days in July and August when I wake up with a pit in my stomach, a quiet grief that has no language. I miss the relief of a cold front breeze. I miss the crackle of fall leaves under my boots. I miss the way my skin didn’t feel like it was suffocating in the air. But mostly, I miss belonging to a place without question.

And yet—I chose this.

I chose this life. This city. This relationship. This heat.

So I’ve had to confront something deeper: the part of me that always wonders if I made the right choice. The part that romanticizes what I left behind. The part that scans for flaws in the present to justify an emotional return to the past.

That’s what “the grass is greener” thinking really is, isn’t it? It’s the mind’s attempt to soothe itself by imagining an alternative reality where discomfort doesn’t exist. Where nostalgia is never complicated, and memory never betrays you.

But the truth is, nostalgia always betrays you. It edits. It curates. It filters out the loneliness, the arguments, the stagnancy. It leaves you with highlight reels of comfort, laughter, holidays, and familiarity. It doesn’t show you the reasons you left.

And yet, I still find myself caught in that cycle. When things get hard—when the summer air feels like too much, when I feel emotionally distant from people, when I’m misunderstood or disoriented—I slip back into that old script: Maybe I should’ve stayed. Maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe if I were home, I’d be happier.

But “home” isn’t where you’re from. It’s where you are becoming. And becoming isn’t always beautiful.

It’s messy. Lonely. Raw.

Sometimes, it means rebuilding yourself from the ground up in unfamiliar soil, praying that your roots will eventually take. And sometimes they don’t—not right away. But that doesn’t mean they never will.

Unlearning the idea that the grass is greener means accepting that all grass needs watering. That every city, every relationship, every life path will come with its share of droughts and weeds. It means choosing presence over fantasy. It means resisting the urge to measure the worth of your current life against a memory that isn’t even accurate.

It also means honoring what was without letting it eclipse what is.

So when summer comes, and I find myself aching for the Midwest skies, I don’t shame that feeling anymore. I let it pass through me like a storm. I sit with the grief. I remember my favorite spots, the cool air of a 70 degree day, the way cicadas sang in the trees back home. And then I look around me—the life I’m building here, the people who love me, the version of myself who is no longer shrinking.

This version of me doesn’t run back. She learns to stay. To root. To water what’s in front of her.

Maybe the grass isn’t greener. Maybe it’s just different. And maybe, just maybe, I’m learning to love the patch I’m standing on—even when it’s overgrown and wild, even when it’s scorched by unfamiliar heat. Because this is my ground now. And I am enough to make it bloom.