GypsyRoseLee, where in Virgina are you? I'm in Germantown, MD and I've been told I had a Southern accent. We kind of resent being called Southern- Maryland never ceded from the Union. But everyone up at school in NY state says I have a Southern accent. And when I go to NC every summer, I pick up the full-blown accent in just a few days.
I have always thought that I have a lack of a distinctive accent because of the hyper-diversity in my area, but I pick up accents wherever I go.
At school, practically everyone is from Chicago (suburbs) or Long Island. So when I first come back home, my vowels are all screwed up- it varies from word to word.
Oh, and my mom says that when I was little, I used to randomly start speaking in a British accent, because I watched Mary Poppins and Peter Pan so much that I picked it up.
Like a firework unexploded
Wanting life but never
knowing how