Where the Heart Is: The Place That Made Me

If you had to define your essence—the quirks, passions, and scars that make you who you are—odds are good you’d end up tracing a map of the places that shaped you. For me, that place is Bar Harbor, Maine. It's not just a picturesque coastal town where the salt air leaves your hair just a little too windswept (okay, if coastal chic was an Olympic sport, Bar Harbor could medal). Bar Harbor raised me, defined me, and taught me the three pillars of life and love: patience, perspective, and how to perfect skipping rocks. Turns out, those lessons apply to navigating relationships just as much as they do for surviving a Maine winter.

Let me explain.

Every Tide Has Its Time: Learning Patience

Growing up in Bar Harbor means you live by the whims of nature. The tide comes in; the tide goes out—and trust me, if you time a beach picnic wrong, you’ll find your sandwiches floating off toward Nova Scotia. The area’s rhythms shaped my life and forced me to appreciate the concept of waiting for what truly matters.

Take, for example, hiking Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. It’s the highest point on the East Coast, and every guidebook will insist you set a 4:00 AM alarm for its sunrise. As a teenager, I thought this was one giant overhyped Instagram trap. I mean, why haul myself out of bed when I could just Google "mountain sunrises" instead? But when I finally did it, I realized something profound: there’s nothing instant about life’s most unforgettable moments. Watching the horizon blush pink as seagulls cry in the distance is the reward for enduring frostbitten mornings and cranky sunrise hikers. That kind of beauty takes time.

The same goes for relationships. How often do we try to rush the moments we think we deserve? “Why hasn’t he texted me back yet?” “Shouldn’t we have defined the relationship by now?” But if Bar Harbor taught me anything, it’s this: let the tide decide its rhythm. Rushing a connection, like climbing too fast up Cadillac Mountain, guarantees more missteps than magic. Take time to appreciate the small moments on the way up. A shared laugh, a swapped secret, even an awkward first-date side hug—those are the real views worth stopping for.

Don’t Fight the Fog: Embracing Perspective

If you’ve ever been to Maine in the summertime, you’ve probably experienced the Celtic-level mysticism we locals call “ocean fog.” It rolls in out of nowhere, wraps the island like a damp sweater, and hangs out like it owns the place. Bar Harbor in July is supposed to look like a glossy L.L. Bean ad—whale-watching tours beneath open skies, pine-draped cliffs catching golden light. But nope. That fog will wreck your postcard-perfect plans and force you to slow down, adapt, and—most frustratingly—find something fun to do indoors (lobster roll, anyone?).

The fog never clears when you want it to. The same can be said for conflict in relationships. Fights happen. Misunderstandings cloud things over. Whether someone forgot your birthday (yikes) or you both defined “exclusive” a little differently (double yikes), every relationship has moments where it’s hard to see which way the wind will blow. Bar Harbor taught me to sit with the haze instead of trying to fight it. Sometimes perspective, like a lifted fog, only comes when the timing is right.

When the clouds cleared after my first big breakup? I realized we weren’t madly in love—we were comfortable. That kind of clarity felt startling at first, but with it came a strange sense of peace: not every foggy moment has to lead to happily-ever-after. Sometimes it just teaches you what not to settle for.

Every Shell Tells a Story

As a kid, I spent entire summers combing the beaches near Sand Beach looking for perfect pieces of sea glass. To this day, I’ve found exactly three pieces worth framing—and about 1.7 million shards I convinced myself were close enough. Every bright-red lobster buoy and weatherworn dock in Bar Harbor will tell you this: perfection doesn’t exist here. What’s worth finding, though, is the beauty in imperfection.

I think about this every time my now-fiancé partners with me for a DIY project. (Case in point: our attempt to restore a Maine thrift-store coffee table ended with exactly zero usable furniture but a lifetime of laughs.) It’s easy to believe you’re supposed to curate perfection in a relationship—whether that’s scrolling Pinterest boards for date ideas or choosing the perfect 18-step skincare routine to show up glowing to your date. Bar Harbor reminds me that the best connections—the soul-deep ones—are built from shared imperfections, not flawless packaging.

Next time you’re yearning for perfect “couple goals” moments, slow down for the small shards. Sweaty hiking dates, dishwashing debates, or shared inside jokes about that barista who always gets your orders wrong—these are what hold stronger, shinier memories than anything you’ll filter through social media.

Maine-Ly About Connection

At its core, Bar Harbor is a town about connection—to nature, to people, and to the quiet parts of yourself that only emerge when you stand at the edge of the world and let the Atlantic breeze knock some sense into you. It taught me that love, like nature, thrives in cycles. Some days are as radiant as summer sunsets over Frenchman Bay; some days are fog-filled hassles. All of it adds up to something bigger than the moment you’re in.

So if you ever find yourself in my part of the world—perhaps hiking in Acadia or devouring a lobster tail at Thurston’s Lobster Pound—just pause and take it all in. Let the tide remind you that things fall into place when they’re meant to. Let the fog teach you that perspective takes time. And let the sea glass show you that imperfections turn into treasures with enough patience.

Bar Harbor may not have skyscrapers, nightlife, or anything resembling a decent Thai place (seriously, someone start a business here, I’m begging), but it’s where the foundation of who I am was laid. It’s the place I come back to when the tangled brambles of life—yes, and love—threaten to overwhelm me.

The place that made me? It didn’t just teach me how to skip rocks—it taught me how to ride life’s waves. And, dare I say, I think it nailed it.