From the time that I learned to speak until about six weeks ago, that question has been relatively for me easy to answer. Depending on with whom I’m speaking, home was sometimes the brick house on the end of a quiet cul-de-sac that my parents have lived in for the past 25 years. It was the house where 10-year old me scraped her knees rollerblading on the driveway and where 17-year old me baked cookies every December with my mom and my grandmother.

When I ventured out of state for college, home became “the Detroit area” or “a suburb 30 minutes west of Detroit,” to which I returned every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter without fail. Home was never my college town, but rather the town where 15-year old me scooped ice cream at Dairy King and where 21-year old me celebrated adulthood over school breaks with friends at local watering holes.

This clear line of thinking has been muddled over the past six weeks, though. After years of identifying myself as someone who was “from the Detroit area,” I have moved into the actual city of Detroit and feel a million miles away from the home I had previously known. During the first weeks of Challenge Detroit, we were plunged into a crash course about all things Detroit. I walked around the Detroit Historical Museum with my peers. I listened to changemakers speak about nonprofits and projects like Detroit 1967 in awe and disbelief that I was so uneducated about the city with which I associated for so long. I felt embarrassed that I had never sought to learn about the history of slavery in Detroit or the destruction of Paradise Valley or even the current battle over transportation in metro area.

At first, I didn’t want to admit to anyone how little I knew. Entering the city as a born-and-bred suburbanite comes with its own challenges, which I assumed would be amplified by admitting my ignorance. But I soon recognized that in order to remediate my lack of knowledge, I would need to ask for help. I wouldn’t be an ambassador for the city without soliciting the stories and opinions of those who were so deeply ingrained in its history and contemporary culture. I couldn’t fully immerse myself in Detroit and Challenge Detroit if I didn’t enter neighborhoods with which I was unfamiliar or read books that made me empathetic to what the residents of the city have endured throughout its history.

That’s where I am right now: still trying. I’m still trying to absorb as much information about the city as I can through its people and through the resources available to me. I’m still trying to piece together my own opinions and stories to share with those who might be in a similarly uninformed position.

I’m still trying to figure out if Detroit can ever be home for me. I’m leaning towards yes. It helps that I am surrounded by 41 supportive peers within the program who share their experiences in the city with me every day, who inform my perception of our lives here, and who challenge me to ask the questions I might have been too scared to ask six weeks ago.

Living in the city for the past six weeks has been uncomfortable, beautiful, historical, and forward-facing all at once. So far, things are looking pretty good.