Yup, my parents are moving again. My father apparently just landed a new university job at Miami of Ohio. He’ll finally get back to what he loves – teaching horticulture. No more administrative bullshit for him, which is great. He’s going out there to start in early September, and at some point my mother and the contents of the house in Missouri will necessarily follow. This will mark the seventh place my parents have lived in my life time (if you count individual houses). While it no longer directly affects me now that I am living on my own, there is still a sense of a shift for me with this new move. Every time my parents move, any sense of a physical place that exists as “home” diminishes a little more. In the practical sense, yes, “home” for me now is 5938 N Broadway Street in Chicago. But on the level of emotional and psychological investment, home is certainly not here. Currently, “home” is floating somewhere in space, waiting for me to find a new and more permanent place for myself before it descends back to ground level.
But yeah, life is a crazy thing sometimes with people moving around all over the place. I’m in Chicago now. My sister was in Mongolia, is now in Missouri, and will shortly be leaving for New York City. My parents will return to Ohio before too long. Within a year I’ll almost certainly be living in Japan.
Some families stay put. Three or four generations all staying close both physically and relationally. Nobody wants to stray too far from the family. We are certainly not that type of family. For better or worse, we’ve got a bit of wanderlust in our blood.
