Where is home?

It has always been weird for me to talk about where I am from or where I call home. People always get confused when I try to explain where I am from. If I say I originally came from Nampa, ID then they start talking about Nampe like I should know something about it. You see the problem is when I was about six years my family started moving a lot. This started due to an economy similar to the one we are in now. My Father lost his job and he wasn't able to find a new one in Nampa. It got so bad that my parents called a family meeting to announce that if my Dad didn't find a job soon he was going to have to leave so that my Mom could get assistance to take care of us kids. Not long after that meeting my Father came up with a job working construction. It was for a company that lease employees out to the gas and oil companies. This caused my family to move any were from a few months to every year and a half depending on the job. This lasted for until my third grade year when my Dad got a blood clot. We still moved around after that, but it started slowing down.

You see most people even if they move as a young child they only move once maybe twice. This is excluding military kids. So when asked where I am from and I answer "I moved a lot" the next question is "Were you a military brat?". Which then I on top of answering where I am from I now have to explain why we moved so much when my Dad wasn't in the military at the time. This still is a problem for me and it actually has gotten worse. Now people ask questions like "So are you going home for the holidays?" or when I am going on vacation "Are you going home?" How am I suppose to answer these questions? My parents live in Wyoming now in a town I have never lived in. On top of that I have never liked Wyoming due to events that occured when I lived there the first time. My worst memories occured there both at home and in school. So calling it home in any way goes against everything I believe in.

Then there is the whole thing with my obvious love for Oregon. So most people automatically assume I grew up in Oregon. Which I guess is as close as I get to having a home. Oregon was a part of my life before moving due to my Mom's parents lived in Ashland and we visited them every summer before the moving started. There is also the fact that at one poing my sisters, my Mom, my brother, and I went to live with my Grandparents in Ashland. Then between my fourth and fifth grade year my parents decided to move to the Coast of Oregon. We ended up landing in the area of Reedsport and North Bend. We spent four years there and it started out rocky. Then right before we ended up moving again the most amazing thing in my life happened. For the first time in my life a group of people brought me into their fold. Before that I had people who befriended me, but never a group of people who accepted me. For the first time in my life since all the moving started I belonged some where. After that it didn't matter any more where I was or what other people thought. I learned to believe in myself. I learned what home was.

Home is the place where the people who love you accept you. They accept your quirky ways.When you are sad they are the ones who make you smile. Home is the place where no matter how much distance is between you and the people you love they make the distance seem shorter. So I guess for me home is where my friends are. It doesn't matter if I am in Oregon, Arizona, or where I am as long as my friends are there. You can also throw my family in there too, but good luck at getting them all in the same room without an ackward moment. Getting all my friends in place is a better bet unfortunately. That doesn't mean I am giving up on trying to get my whole family together and have it be peaceful. It just means I am going to keep praying and keep believing in miracles. It will take a miracle to make it happen.

I hope you all enjoyed this. Please pass it on if you did and if you want to continue reading my future posts please go to the top of the page and become a fan. Happy Holidays.