I’ve come to understand that to officially call yourself a Mainer, at least three generations of your family must have lived, worked and died on Maine soil. That’s an adequate enough time to erase any bad habits that may have been picked up in other states or countries.

Lucky for me, the rules slacken the closer you get to the Portland city line.

It’s been exactly two years since I fled the Midwest.

Two years since I announced to my stunned friends and family that I was selling whatever wouldn’t fit in my car and moving to Maine (“Yes, Maine” I had said. “Of course you know it, it’s that coastal state in the northeast corner…yes, the one with the lobsters…yes, people really live there.”)

Two years since I woke up in a rented room on the East End, surveyed my colorful new surroundings, took a deep breath of the cool almost-autumn air and thought, “Oh my God…what have I done?”

Every day since, I’ve felt less and less like a visitor. And on Labor Day weekend I was feeling 100% local.

A friend and I had ferried back to Portland from Peaks Island, where we’d spent what might have been the last warm day of the year, with plans to meet a friend for drinks at Portland Lobster Company. But as the sun set and the air temperature dropped, both of us were cursing our short sleeves. Home - where the stack of fleece and sweatshirts lay in wait - was close, but not that close.

But, my keen friend noted, just across the street a row of tourist shops stood before us, flaunting their lobster magnets, Maine shot glasses and framed photographs of various Maine scenery. And just beyond the 99-cent trinkets rose a wall of soft fleece and cotton sweatshirts – each emblazoned with those familiar five letters: MAINE.

We didn’t care, at first, about entering the shop, tearing sweatshirts from the rack and pulling them over our heads. We chatted with the cashier as we paid, and she told us a about a recent visitor who didn’t approve of the store’s Made in China merchandise.

“This woman got so offended when she saw our sweatshirts were made in China. She ended up laying down in the middle of the store in protest. We just went about our day and she lay there, going on and on about China and whatnot. Finally when we were closing my boss was, like, ‘You need to go, we’re closing,’ and the lady went to stand up and whacked her head on a rack of hangers and my boss was like, ‘yeah, those hangers are from China too.’”

As I moved toward the door to leave, the sudden realization hit me: a Portlander I may be, but a tourist I looked. And I wasn’t a tourist. This is my home! I live here!

So I flipped the sweatshirt inside out. Phew! Misperception diverted!

Until the guys selling Duck Tour tickets meandered over and said, “While you’re here, you should go inside that pet store,” he motions over to the Fetch pet store. “They have all kinds of stuff for pets. People here just love their animals.”

“Yes, I’ve been in there. I live here.”

“So if you have time, go in and look around.”

“I have. I live here.”

Maybe two years isn’t enough time to shake off the out-of-town look. Maybe I’d rather not completely shirk my Midwestern past. Maybe I should just wear the dang sweatshirt right side out.

And it doesn’t matter if I look like a tourist. It doesn’t matter if I pronounce the “r” in lobster. In my book, you are a Mainer if you 1) love this state and 2) consider Maine home.

Check, check.