Roots
I’ve noticed something. People who were born in this town stay in this town. Either that, or they leave and come back to raise their family here. It was the same in my last town, too. People gravitate back to home. That’s predictable, though! People go back to what they know.
Here’s what I know: I’ve had four “homes.” Illinois, Colorado, Indiana, and Ohio. But I’ve only ever had one home. And that’s with my family.
My family is my home.
When I talk to my friends about hometowns, family life, and traditions, almost invariably it seems like their idea of “home” is intrinsically tied in with a geographic location. I feel like sometimes I’ve missed out on the hometown experience. The longest that I’ve lived in a place was six years, so I’ve never experienced going to school with the same people for my entire life. I’ve never experienced having a teacher that my parents had in school. I’ve never experienced living in the same house for my entire life. I’ve never heard my parents talk about how much the town has changed since they were kids.
But I’m okay with that. I really do believe that moving has taught my brother and me a lot:
- Living in one place for your entire life typically means that your extended family lives close to you. Having to travel to see family sucks sometimes, but it does make me appreciate the chances that I do have to see them. I don’t take for granted the time that I do spend with them during holidays and other trips.
- Living in one place for your entire life means that you go to school with the same kids for thirteen years. Moving means that I’ve learned to meet new people and develop new friendships. It’s made me realize that there are people whose opinions don’t mean much, and people whose opinions I still value even after I switch zip codes. It’s taught me to be a better judge of character. Honestly, the hardest part about the last move was leaving my friends. That was awful — there are still times where it hits me hard. I think about how their lives continue on without me, and that’s taught me an important lesson: I am not the center of everyone’s world. Life goes on without Jonah.
- Living in one place your entire life only let’s you interact with one community’s worldview. I’ve noticed more and more how different all of the communities that I’ve lived in are. I would never have known that unless I had moved. It’s stretched me, at times it’s made me bitter, and it’s building my patience. Interestingly, it’s shown me that America really is the United States — plural.
Those aren’t the only things that moving around has taught me. The biggest impact that it’s had on my life has been on my understanding of home and family. You see, for me, home isn’t a place. Home is a group of people that love me and care about my growth. My family isn’t just grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins; my family is also a whole bunch of surrogate grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that have been in every state. And my roots aren’t in just one place, I have roots everywhere.
If you were to compare my story to that of a tree, I would be a pretty widespread tree with roots hundreds of miles apart. And I think that’s given me a degree of stability that some kids don’t have yet. For me, leaving for college will be a big deal, but not earth-shaking or world-shattering. It’s just another move, right? Yeah there are parts of it that suck, but I get to meet a whole bunch of new people, and put down roots somewhere else, too. To (cliché-ly) quote my favorite author, Fitzgerald:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
But I’m not going to be “borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Screw that.
I’m going forward.
-J
