By Nahida Akter
When I first arrived in Portales, nothing felt permanent. The town, the streets, even the sky seemed like things I was simply moving through rather than settling into. I told myself I am here for school, for a degree, for a future that existed somewhere else. Portales was a stop along the way, not a destination. At least, that’s what I believed at the beginning.
Small towns have a way of making time feel slower. Days stretch out, and there isn’t much to distract you from yourself. In a bigger place, you can disappear into crowds, lose your thoughts in constant noise. Here, the stillness makes everything louder even your doubts, your memories and your expectations. The town doesn’t rush you, but it doesn’t let you hide either.
At ENMU, the campus feels almost like its own world but not separate from the town around it. The same faces pass you on sidewalks and in grocery store aisles. Th professors become familiar figures beyond the classroom. The classmates slowly turn into people who know your schedule, who recognize your car, who ask how your week has been going. It’s comforting, but also unsettling. Privacy is limited. Anonymity is rare.
At times, that closeness felt suffocating. There were moments when I wanted more excitement, more options, more places to run when things got heavy. I would scroll through social media, watching people in bigger cities live faster lives, convincing myself that I was missing out. Portales felt too quiet for my ambitions, too small for my worries. I counted the days until breaks, imagining escape as relief.
But small towns have a subtle pull. It’s not dramatic or immediate. It settles in slowly, unnoticed at first. You learn which buildings catch the sunset just right. You get used to the wind and the open sky. You develop routines coffee stops, library corners, familiar paths across campus that begin to feel grounding instead of limiting. Without realizing it, the place starts to anchor you.
There’s a kind of honesty that comes with small-town gravity. Without endless distractions, you’re forced to sit with your thoughts. You notice how relationships shape you, how failures linger, how growth doesn’t always feel like progress in the moment. I learned more about myself here than I expected to. Just not in lectures or assignments, but in quiet evenings, long walks, and conversations that didn’t have anywhere else to rush off to.
Portales taught me patience. It taught me how to exist without constant validation. In a place where “something happening” isn’t guaranteed, you learn to find meaning in simplicity. A good conversation becomes an event. A small accomplishment feels significant. You notice when someone shows up for you because it matters more when the circle is small.
There were moments when I wanted to leave simply to prove that I could. That I wasn’t stuck. That I was meant for something bigger. But over time, I realized that staying wasn’t a failure. If anything, it required more honesty. It meant acknowledging that growth doesn’t always come from movement. Sometimes it comes from stillness.
Small-town gravity doesn’t trap you; it tests you. It asks whether you can sit with yourself long enough to understand who you are without noise influencing the answer. It challenges your assumptions about success, connection, and belonging. And if you let it, it reshapes you in quiet ways.
I still don’t know where I’ll end up someday. Leaving is inevitable, and that doesn’t scare me anymore. What surprises me is knowing that when I do go, this place will come with me. Not because it held me back, but because it held me steady when I didn’t realize I needed it.
Portales was supposed to be temporary. ENMU was just a chapter. But small towns don’t always stay where we leave them. Sometimes, they settle into us with a quiet, steady gravity and change the way we move through the rest of our lives.
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