So, where are you from?

I return to the East Coast with giant lemons and clippings of succulents stuffed among the belongings in my suitcase. My aunt's yard is an exotic treasure to me now.

I grew up in Los Angeles. I used to say that I'm from LA.

When people ask me now, So, where are you from? I try to determine what they mean before answering. Sometimes they want to know which restaurants are near my house, and other times they want to know which part of the planet my ancestors occupied.

The timeline has warped my answer and my identity. I was from LA when that was more recently true. But now, officially half my life has been away from it.
Where I'm from is only part of where I've been.
Or how I identify.

But still. This place.

It will always be a piece of home. A fraction, whatever size, of the full answer.
Of how I became me, now.

I hope I always see it through this lens. And that this feeling of home never grows too distant.