Moving: An Attempt at Empathy

As THEY say, "Home is where the heart is".

As a kid, I moved around depending on where the Army sent my father. My family would arrive at a destination, we'd move in, get familiar with the schools, teachers, and various surroundings. Each new-turned-old destination was the same process: pack, process out of school (whatever that entailed), move, travel via plane or automobile, visit friends and family if the opportunity arose, arrive at next assignment, unpack, in-process for school, meet a new teacher, see faces of names unknown, get familiar with a new routine. The very words are rather clinical, no?

(Today, as I type this, I'm wondering if the generic physical structure of a house built on base helped our 'home' feel notsohomey so it was easier in some subconscious way to depart.) 

I'm in Texas now -- most of my life; I consider myself Texan*. I've planted roots and they have grown deep. My tree stretches as far west as El Paso, as far east as the piney woods past Winnsboro, as far north as Midland and Amarillo and as far south as Corpus Christi. The home I bought in the DFW area, I lived in for 10 years. There is a sense of HOME. Might be the aging, the life experience and wisdom gained, but I enjoy what I've seeded and 

During the mediation of my marriage dissolution, I walked away from any ownership of our home that we shared for 10 years. While I have sentimental ties to it, I was able to move out with relatively little look-back. Toward the end of my stay there, so many negative experiences occurred and the house itself didn't *feel* like home; it had physically changed to something resembling a clash of prison and half-assed DIY.

That's MY perspective. 

When I left Number Two ("NT"), I actually, physically, LEFT. I moved The Girls and I into an apartment. This is the first, real move they experienced. Now, NT has a new home & will be selling the only home those kiddos've ever known. I imagine they are pretty shaken.

By the time I was 16, the age of My Eldest, I had lived on two continents, moved five or six times in at least three states (Dad tried to get stationed in Texas as much as possible). When I was 11, MLO's age, I was living in Hawaii, surrounded by families I didn't know, in a culture I'd never seen or heard of, on a rock far away from the mainland. Thankfully, for the most part, I didn't have a hard time adjusting to new places and faces. My brother did, somewhat. My Girls -- I really don't know how they feel about their two moves from one house. I wonder if they even know how they feel? I worry, you know, about how this will fuck them up or make them better people.

I DO believe that roots are important, valuable, needed. I also believe change is unavoidable and though roots run deep, there is no reason to fear the winds of change, because we are seeds, fruit-bearing beings. No matter where you are, you can plant roots and build a forest in this world.

* Not the oil-wealthy, gun totin', horse ridin', look-at-everyone-as-a-conservative-or-we-are-enemies, boots for kicks, twangy southern drawl tawkin', bible-thumpin' kind; NOR the kind that plays for the NFL franchise in Houston.