Let’s get something straight — if someone tells you they’re from Chicago, odds are, they’ll tell you again in five minutes. And I might be one of them.

I’m not technically from Chicago. I’m from “The Region” — that weird, industrial limb of northwest Indiana that stretches from Gary to Valparaiso and stubbornly refuses to admit it isn’t part of Illinois.

I grew up in a town that got Chicago news, Chicago sports, Chicago weather alerts, and Chicago pizza commercials on WGN. We went into the city for field trips, birthday dinners, Cubs games, concerts at Navy Pier, and to feel like we were part of something electric and important. It felt big, alive, and just slightly out of reach — which made it even more addictive.

If you say you’re from Valpo, people squint. If you say you’re from Indiana, they assume you mean cornfields and conservative talk radio. But if you say “just outside Chicago,” suddenly people get it. There’s a weight to the word. It lands with a kind of credibility. Chicago means grit. Chicago means character. Chicago means… whatever’s opposite of L.A.

And here’s the thing: I went to college in Chicago. I lived there. I taught there. I learned how to parallel park on side streets during blizzards, how to dodge pigeons on the El platform, how to order Italian beef with confidence. My first real job was downtown. My first heartbreak was, too. Chicago became more than a place on the map — it became a backdrop for becoming myself.

So when people ask where I’m from, I could say Indiana. I could say The Region. But what I actually say is: Chicago. Because that’s where I figured out who I was. That’s where the stories I keep telling really started.

Maybe that’s why people from Chicago — or “Chicago-adjacent” — can’t stop telling you about it. It’s not just geography. It’s identity.