Photo courtesy of the author — Timeline of moves from 1982 to 2017
My experience of being constantly on the move
For a little while, I’ve been telling people that I’m in the 24th place to call home. Turns out I was off by about 20%; it’s 29 places. What follows is a bit of the story of how I came to live so many places, and some things I’ve learned along the way.
I didn’t discover my 24 number was wrong until I sat down to actually write it out. I was inspired to do so when I came across a wonderful Medium article titled “How to Write a Personal Essay.” In it, Moore lays out a methodology for writing a personal essay which involves making a timeline and going from there.
“Turn your notebook sideways, so you have the most space possible. On one end is your date of birth, and on the other end is today’s date.”
So, I did just that, was surprised to discover I’ve lived in 29 places, and decided to go about writing from there.
Where I’ve Been
A lot of people are quite surprised when I tell them how many places I’ve lived. Whether it’s new co-workers, friends I’ve had for years, family members, or even a stranger at a bar: folks are generally surprised that one can live in so many places in a life of 39 years.
When you do the math, I’ve lived in a new place every 1.3 years since I was born. To be fair, one of the places was coming back to my parent’s house after leaving college for a bit, but other than that, it’s been everything from a girlfriend’s dorm room, to apartments, to houses, to a cement box in the middle of a jungle.
- Oregon — 8
- Utah — 1
- Illinois — 2
- Virginia — 4
- Montana — 6
- Virgin Islands — 3
- California — 5
I also studied abroad in London and Paris for a couple of months in college, but I’m not counting those here.
How I Moved So Much
My parents divorced when I was around 5 or 6 years old. My mom left our home in Portland, moved to Beaverton, and started climbing a corporate ladder at Sears for a number of years. This led us all around the country as she moved from job to job, doing what she thought was best to take care of her family.
I hated it.
When I was younger, I thought it was exciting. My sister and I would move to new and interesting places and we’d fly back home to visit my dad regularly. We were unaccompanied minors on planes and got to wear little pins, get special treatment, and felt like pretty big kids.
Being a 9 or 10 year old on a flight with a little 7 or 8 year old sister by your side created a lot of feelings of responsibility. I don’t remember exactly when we started flying by ourselves, but we were young. One time I felt big enough to ask for a cup of coffee from a flight attendant but was denied.
From what I could write down and remember, I went to 12 schools before high school. We had been living in Salem, OR for a couple of years (6th grade to 8th grade) and I loved it. We were there for more than a year, I had made some really good friends, and I was looking forward to attending high school.
Then my mom moved again. I had, had enough. I said I wanted to go live with my dad, fought hard to do so, and moved from north of Chicago to a tiny town called Stevensville, MT a couple of days before school started my freshman year.
There I stayed for 4 years; the longest I had lived anywhere in my entire life.
Once I got to college, the moving continued:
- University of Montana
- Northern Virginia Community College
- George Mason University
Catering, waiting tables, bartending, teaching, barista, acting, and moving from place to place to follow jobs, art, education, and sometimes, love.
After college, I was heading across the country to go act in California. Stopped in Montana, met my first wife, lived in a couple of places there, found myself a bachelor again, and moved to the Virgin Islands.
There I lived in a beautiful condo overlooking the south side of the island of Saint Thomas, left there to live with a friend, met my second wife, lived in a cement box in the middle of a jungle, and then I pursued my dream to move to the Silicon Valley.
California brought a number of occupations and places to live including the heart of downtown San Francisco right on Geary and Jones near the edge of the Tenderloin, and blocks away from Union Square.
My daughter was made and so we moved out of the city to a more pleasant place appropriately called Pleasant Hill.
My 2nd wife became my 2nd ex-wife and I moved my daughter and I back up to Oregon from whence I came. And here I’ve been in the 29th place in my life. It’s a rental. I tried to see about purchasing the place I’m living but the owner isn’t interested in selling.
So, maybe place number 30 will be my first home.
What It’s Like Moving All the Time
When you’re a kid moving all the time you never learn to get comfortable anywhere. There were a few times we moved before the boxes had even been unpacked from the time before.
Making friends was really tough. Most people around you had grown up with the people they were around. They had gone to many grades together, knew everyone, experienced the community around them. They’d gone to the same concerts, same shows, same 4th of July celebrations. Experienced the same local news, local radio, local television stations.
I would make up stories (some of them quite grandiose) to try and impress people and make friends. When you were the new kid, you could be anyone from anywhere and be related to anybody.
You could be Hulk Hogan’s nephew, a kid who grew up in Africa, a cousin of the guy who made the Ninja Turtles, or the son of a famous artist.
Those were all stories told by myself in efforts to get people to like me. I wasn’t good at sports, I was a smarty-pants bit of a nerd, and wasn’t terribly popular since I was always “the new kid.”
I didn’t discover being the class clown until I was a teenager so I had a pretty rough time being a kid. I spent most of my time on a computer or in front of a television screen playing Nintendo.
Just when you’d start to feel comfortable and start to get in the groove, mom would come with the inevitable invitation: “We’re going to Olive Garden!”
Uh-oh.
When we went out to eat randomly with the whole family that generally meant one thing: we were moving soon.
This happened a number of times growing up. From Oregon, to Utah, to Illinois, back to Oregon, back to Illinois.
Ultimately, it’s lonely moving around so much. You’d think that maybe you’d get to meet a bunch of people moving around from place to place. And, it’s true: you would meet a bunch of people. But most of the time they wanted to hang out with the people they already knew.
It takes a lot of effort to bring someone new along with you. To show them the ropes and expend the time necessary to give them an introduction to people and places.
The folks who have done this in my life are still some of my good friends and I’ve tried to do this with others as much as possible, especially in professional roles where I’ve been in charge of hiring or teaching roles where I had new kids come in.
Some Things I’ve Learned
Having lived in every time zone in the United States and also around a bunch of different people there’s a number of things I’ve learned about the world and about myself as well.
- Everyone thinks they have the worst traffic where they live, even if it’s on a 32 square mile rock in the middle of the ocean.
- Moving is really hard on children; I wouldn’t recommend doing it very often if you can avoid it.
- Recreating yourself over and over eventually leads to not being sure who you are anymore; the only constant in my life was a computer.
- Lying about your past is easy when there’s no one around to verify what it was or who you were.
- “The only thing constant in my life, is change.”
- Be nice to the new kid.
- Good friends are really hard to come by, but in the end most folks only have a few good ones anyway.
What “Home” Means to Me
There’s a phrase that I’ve picked up and used over the years that represents one of the biggest things I’ve learned.
Because the fact of the matter is: home is different for everyone.
Looking up the definition for “home” in the dictionary gives a few different descriptions:
- One’s place of residence
- The social unit formed by a family living together
- A familiar or usual setting; congenial environment; the focus of one’s domestic attention
- A place of origin
For some people, home represents a country. For others, it’s a city, or a town. Then there are those who have a specific building that represents their home. Others still call nature, the world, or the outdoors their “home.”
For me? It’s a bit of all of those definitions, but ultimately:
“Home is where my keys work.”
Some day, I hope that I’ll have a house that I can call a home. I would like to eventually have a building, on a plot of land, in this country, to call mine. But until then, home has been where I can come back to. It’s been the place that I can lay my head down to rest. It’s the place where I can store my belongings, make food, and have my loved ones surround me.
It’s the place where I can plug in my computer, feel safe, feel comfortable, and just be.
Fingers crossed for place number 30.
Day 36 of 60 for developing a writing habit.
Day 26 of 60 for developing a writing habit:
5 Tips for Writing Without Fear
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love publishingrandomdrake.com
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