Nico Addai

What to do when you move across country? You learn.

I love Kansas City and I’m shocked by it.

I love the house I rent, I love my job, I love the area, I love the people and the cute Midwestern smothering in people’s voices. I like their kindness, the their genteel ignorance and willingness to learn. I like feeling like I’m finally exploring America, and getting to know America away from the coasts and honestly the pretentiousness of my college town.

I’ve been hesitant to write about my experiences in KC because I wish I could say I’m having my gritty realism moment. I wish I could say my job is the toughest challenge in my life thus far; I wish I could say I am learning important interpersonal skills in a section of red America that could easily be racist. But I’m not experiencing a lot of negatives. I’ve been away for three weeks and I miss my Mizzou home. I miss my wondering walking paths and the knickerbockers that I know I want for my own house one day. I miss LaMar’s and the Monarch and Brush Creek. I’m excited to eventually explore the whole of Missouri when I get back in January.

Even in more, I’m enjoying my job with Fenaroli & Associates far more than I thought I would. There is just enough challenge that I don’t fee stagnant, but enough time to continue to work with the Data+Feminism that I also love so much

What I think I would about is settling. I’ve been on the move for nearly five years. Ghana to New York to New Jersey to London to the Cayman Islands to Boston to Wellesley and back again. I’ve never stayed in a place for more than a couple of months, and even fewer places have made me want to stay for longer. In Kansas City, I feel like I have a home even while living in an Airbnb. It’s the type of city that Hallmark or Lifetime would pose with a woman like me that just needs a little Midwestern loving. It’s the type of city I could imagine raising kids in.