08 // Back to Columbus, OH

BACK TO COLUMBUS, OH
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5%A: 4%

The four years we spent back in Columbus, the place of our Alma Mater and where we first became a couple, were relatively uneventful, racially speaking. We ended up settling in an inner-ring suburb called Clintonville which we loved, and, whose schools fell within the Columbus Public Schools boundaries. As we were beginning our family, Scott and I had lots of conversations about whether we would move to a different burb before our kids were school-aged or stay in the expansive, urban school district that contained some lovely, high-performing pockets (Clintonville being one of them), but was also full of less-than-awesome overall ratings.

Scott worked at a private K-12 school in Upper Arlington, and I worked as a math teacher in the Olentangy School System. And we attended worship at Worthington Presbyterian Church. Homogenous. Homogenous. And homogenous. I remember the over-simplified metaphor I used, when asked about the comparison of Cleveland to Columbus: Cleveland was like rocky road and Columbus is vanilla. There was a richer and more scrumptious way about Cleveland, for me. Columbus has it's own corner on diversity, but - for me - it didn't touch Cleveland's.