On Moving
When I tell people that I've moved a lot my entire life, a response I frequently get is along the lines of "Wow, how was that?" or "Wow... that must have been hard!"
And often what I say back is... that I got used to it. It didn't feel difficult because that was just how my life was. My dad was in the military, and we moved every 2 to 3 years. I couldn't control it or change it, so I had to accept it and adapt.
Certainly there were difficulties. Room walls couldn't be overly decorated and purchases had to be managed because "where will we put it" and "we are only going to be here for 2 years anyways, why put something up to take it back down" and "how will we pack and move it?" It was almost expected that a couple little things would go missing between moves. Friends were made knowing they had a time limit (this was before social media, so only letter writing and email, which was also still early, and phone calls were the way to keep friendships going. and I had restricted use to everything except letters) and I went to 8 different schools. And of course, if we had moved somewhere nice, or I made friends I was very close to, then moving away was made harder.
But there were positives as well. For example, if I hated a place we moved to, I knew we would only be there for a couple years. We localized our traveling around the new location, and often roadtripped to our new place, so I saw a large part of the country. I also got to live internationally twice and experienced new cultures, which helped broaden my perspectives and gave me a more critical view of the United States. I got to meet so many more people than I would have if I stayed in one spot, so even though I was always shy, it ended up developing my social skills and ultimately made me adaptable to change and instability.
I think the first move I found particularly jarring, that set the tone for the rest of them, was when I moved from upstate New York at the end of first grade. I had moved two or three times prior but our stay in New York was the first one I really remembered and enjoyed. It felt like a home, since my parents had decided to buy a house. I went to Kindergarten and first grade there at a small K-12 school. I learned to read and write and was drawing stories and playing in the yard with my sister and experiencing the near platonic-ideal of the seasons as we learned them in class. We lived in a rural farm area and had rabbits, and our neighbor had cows that I would climb on a fence and yell or sing at, thinking I could talk to them or psychically control. There was a snow storm that canceled school and I cried because I couldn't go. We had a babysitter who was very good at art that I really liked, and a nice old piano teacher. I was in an accelerated reading program in the school, and I'm pretty sure I won a little art kit for an environmental drawing or coloring I did. We lived there for two years, and I think I genuinely thought I would stay and grow up there. So hearing the news we were going to move was upsetting. Even moreso that I had to leave 2 or 3 weeks before summer vacation started, which meant there were fun art projects and end of the school year events that I wouldn't get to participate in. And considering this was the year 2000, and I was only 7, even though I had a couple addresses, letter-writing was a bit optimistic to expect. Which meant I was likely never to hear from my friends again. We had to sell the house. We weren't going to come back.
It's difficult to know what I was thinking at that time, but I think a small part of me hoped we would come back. But a small part of me didn't think we would. We drove to Maryland and lived there for a year, then Kansas for 2 and North Carolina for 3. That entire time I still referred to upstate New York as my "home" and where I was from, but with each move it became more difficult to answer "Where are you from?" I was born in Oklahoma, but had just moved from Kansas, but felt that New York was my home even though I had only lived there for 2 years, several years ago... it became a mess of an answer.
Norway ended up replacing New York as best place I had lived, on merit of being a) international and b) a better standard of living and c) truly life-changing in how it affected me as a person. And North Carolina ended up replacing New York as the closest answer to "home" since I ended up living there for 5 years total, and my family managed to stay there for nearly ten. As an adult I returned to New York for college for four years, then LA for five. And now I'm back.
A common question I get when I tell New Yorkers that I moved from LA is "WHY?" They seem to find it strange that I'd leave warm, sunny California for colder, rainier New York. The easy answer is "grad school!" The extra answer is "I needed a change!" And there's the added "Well I've always wanted to live in the city" (2021, it's happening!)
But I want to focus on "I needed a change!" Because something I've always struggled with is... how difficult I think it is to just settle down in one place and NOT move. We all hear those songs about "I hate this town can't wait to leave" How do I avoid that? What if the city gets me down? Obviously the answer is to move, sure, but what if I can never get that feeling of "Yes, I belong here." I am grateful for the constant moving in my life, because that's the only life I know and as I listed above there were positive takeaways, but do I want that for my own future family and children? But also, do I really want the kind of stability that could turn into settling, that my children might resent, or that might produce a smaller view of the world? I like the idea of my kids having a hometown, but I also don't want my kids to be too scared to try something other than our hometown. Not saying that all people who never moved are scared of moving or change but.. definitely being forced to move frequently will make you reckon with change.
Plus... a big reason why I moved from LA was because I needed a change. I was tired of where I was and wanted to try something new. What if that happens no matter where I go? That 5 years is my limit, and when it's up I'm itching to pack everything up and drive 3000 miles again to somewhere brand new? I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with that but... well, moving is a pain and again. Do I want to subject my future family to that? And for myself... wouldn't I like a hometown? A homebase? A place I can finally say I'm 'from"? A location I belong to? Or am I destined to be from nowhere and everywhere at the same time... drifting from place to place and meeting more people, learning and seeing more things. In a way I am tired of moving... but what happens when I'm tired of where I moved to?
For now, I'm employing the same mental strategy I did with LA. I'm treating New York City as a place to try and make work permanently. If it doesn't, then it doesn't, and I go from there if that happens. The price tag is intimidating, but life is unpredictable. Ultimately I view either outcome as a win. Stay in NYC and love it? Great! Don't like it but move somewhere you like better? Fantastic! And maybe, in the end, I'll end up moving back to that upstate New York town I lived in over 20 years ago and liked so much.... a homecoming, or a disillusionment?
But that's a question for future Corinne.