Image: Home Sweet Home by John Fekner via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.
Before I went to college, I had lived in the same house all my life. And, before I moved to the Midwest in the summer of 2007, I had never lived more than two hours away from that house. In fact, both the apartment in Manhattan where I lived after college and the boarding school in suburban Boston where I taught and lived for five years were exactly 105 miles away from my childhood home.
I have written before about home, where to find it, and how to create it. Having had such a rooted experience of home as a child has made it perhaps more challenging to feel at home in a new place as an adult.
Have you led a nomadic or a rooted existence - or both?
We were pretty nomadic when I was growing up (though in the same state, but different towns... still what I consider nomadic!) and my parents are the same way now. I'm trying very hard to not be as my kids grow up, but sometimes I get the itch to move a little too frequently.
ReplyDeleteI love the comfort of staying close to "home". As much as sometimes I'd love a change, I can't imagine moving much. I hope to let my kids feel they have their roots planted somewhere and find comfort in that too.
ReplyDeleteI was actually nomadic for many years as a young adult. I moved wherever jobs took me, including to Europe. Perhaps why as I get older, "home" feels more important. And not feeling at home, strangely, more uncomfortable. I often have dreams of being homeless. Have, for years. I think they are symbolic of a state of mind, and also, of very real fear.
ReplyDeleteWe moved around quite a bit when I was little, but when we moved to Colorado, I stayed no more than an hour away from my childhood home. Which is still true today. I love that kind of stability.
ReplyDeleteThough I often dream of moving into some McMansion, I've lived in this house for nearly 17 years and, pathetically, it's a mile from my mother's house where I lived till I went to college! I guess the move to Arizona from Chicago was too much for me, or maybe my umbilical cord just doesn't stretch that far.
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