Do you sometimes not quite believe you live in New Hampshire? Does the sight of your Live Free or Die license plate ever take you aback as you approach your car in the supermarket parking lot? Or worse yet, are you one of those people who has yet to register your car in the Granite State, still clinging to your Virginia, Connecticut or Massachusetts license and plates, even though you've been up north for months?

Maybe you're from here and figured you'd be long gone by your 20s or 30s. Or maybe, like me and several of my friends, life's strange, twisting path led you here when you'd imagined a life in a big city or foreign country.

Instead, you find yourself here.

And maybe you begin to realize - after an initial shock - that it isn't such a bad place to be or be stuck, for a while. That certain pleasures lie literally outside your doorstep. That the big, bad, exciting world you are so eager to explore and devour just became human-sized, ready and open for you slow things down and take your place. You'll try to be a contemporary person in an old fashioned place, full of old-fashioned ways. Maybe you'll even like some of them.

In my almost 12 months in New Hampshire, I've met 20 and 30 somethings from Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Montreal, New York, Washington D.C., Vermont and of course, New Hampshire.

Most of us never planned to live here, unlike friends who've "always wanted to live in" X-fill-in-the-blank: London, San Francisco, New York City, Paris and at ages 24 or 33 or somewhere in between are fulfilling those dreams.

But plenty of us aren't following such a clear path. My way to New Hampshire was circuitous - by way of Boston where I was raised, San Francisco where I lived for more than five years in my 20s, a year in New York City and shorter stays in Spain and Germany.

Before moving to Keene last spring, the closet I'd come to living in a rural area were my college years at UMASS Amherst. Places like that, I thought, were for students and professors with families. Not 20 or 30 somethings finding their way.

I loved living in those cities. But, surprisingly, I am also growing to appreciate a new pared-down life in one of New Hampshire's overlooked corners - the southwest.

Keene has few stores to spend money in and few pricey restaurants to eat at. It's an easy place to be young and live on a shoestring without feeling pinched.

It's the kind of place where the girl behind the counter at the bagel store knows your name. And you know her's - Lauren - and that her sister lives in San Diego.

I felt exposed here at first, living in such a small town. Gradually I relaxed.

Friends live down the street from you. Plans are made at the last minute. In the spring and summer, you hike in the late afternoon or go for a swim at a nearby pond. You grill dinner outside for months on end, feeling as though you're on vacation even as you work five days a week. You drive to Jaffrey for homemade ice cream and listen to classical music at Apple Hill on Tuesday nights.

In the fall you go apple picking, sip Irish coffee at Harlow's in Peterborough and think about all the skiing, snow shoeing and skating you'll be doing that winter. You hit the used bookstores and stop at a diner for lunch.

You spend more times outdoors because it's right there -- not an hour's drive away. You still miss big cities, great restaurants, the Brattle Theater in Cambridge. But, if you're like me, you go home a lot of weekends to soak up urban life.

In the meantime, maybe you realize New Hampshire isn't such a bad place to find yourself and instead of fighting it, you give in and enjoy it.

You never know where the winding road will take you next.


Jennifer Jordan writes for the Keene Sentinel, and has yet to say, ``You can't get there from here.''