Why I’ve Ever Returned to Pocatello

Why I’ve Ever Returned to Pocatello

There have only ever been two reasons I’ve returned to Pocatello when I’ve left—and one of them has weighed far more heavily than the other.

The first time I came back from the monastery, it wasn’t because I missed Pocatello. I returned because I was switching over to serve the Diocese of Idaho. That choice had almost nothing to do with the city itself. I only stayed because the diocese asked me to, not because of family, friends, or anything else outside of the mission I was on.

Every other return—except for one—was forced. I came back because I had nowhere else to go, no money, and no way to stabilize myself. My family lives here, and they were the only ones who had any obligation to help. That’s it. It was never about longing to be close to them or missing the city.

The one exception was when I came back from Seattle and decided to stay because I had fallen in love. It was someone I had crushed on for a long time, and that love completely changed how I saw Pocatello. For the first time, I had my first true love here. I had even made plans to leave again with my best friend after that relationship ended, but then I was raped—and that trauma compounded everything.

The next time I returned was after a long, brutal battle with mono. I couldn’t support myself financially, and once again I needed the security of family to regain my footing. That was the pattern: return, rebuild, plan to leave.

Then came the return I never wanted. My lover wanted to move back, so we did—and it killed something inside me. Since then, I haven’t been able to leave.

The truth is, I’ve never come back to Pocatello out of nostalgia, longing, or love for family. This place has never built me up. The only things that have ever kept me here are financial insecurity or love for one other person. That’s it.

People don’t always understand that. They assume there must be more—work, family, friends, the city itself. But for me, work here was always just a means to an end, something to fund an eventual escape. It wasn’t my calling, and it wasn’t my identity. Yet in Pocatello, your work becomes your identity—because there’s nothing else.

This city suffocates me. It has since we moved here in 1991. It stifles growth, even in love, because there’s no space to breathe or become anything more than what you already were. In Pocatello, no one lets you forget your past. You’re only ever what you’ve been, or what people have labeled you. It happened to my husband, and it happened to me.

That’s the truth of Pocatello for me: a place where labels stick, where history defines you, and where I have only ever stayed for survival or love—but never for the city itself.

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