Home. It's a place many of us talk about. Home is our anchor.Home is where we know who we are, where we learn who we are.
Most of us think of home as the house we live or the city. When I was young, home was Las Vegas, the three bedroom, two bath, single-story house with the great view of the mountains behind us. When I was nine, we moved to Fresno. I was excited to move, it was a new adventure and I got to live in a state I had never been to before. I thought California would be amazing. I got to Fresno and discovered Las Vegas was still where my heart was. I moved to Mountain house ( a suburb of Tracy ) and I loved the house we were renting. I wasn't happy about the move to Tracy, but 11 months in Chino Hills made me appreciate it, so I was thrilled to move back. Now I am in Utah, and I love it too.
My point? I have moved eight times in the past nine years, for a grand total of nine times in my eighteen years of life. I don't have a place that I called home anymore. Do I call the place that I was born home? I love Las Vegas to this day, and love to brag but I'm third generation native, but I couldn't go back. It wouldn't be the same.
I hated Fresno.
I loved the house in Mountain House but I can't go back.
Tracy was okay, but I don't know where I would go.
I couldn't stand Chino Hills.
North Salt Lake is okay, but I'm not sure how long I'll stay or where I would go if I don't.
So I guess, by many people standard of home, I don't have one. But in reality, I do, and my many moves have helped me discover it.
For me it's people. I can be at home where ever I am if I am with people I love.
When I think of home, I no longer think of a single place. I think of the house in Mountain House, and the people from everywhere I've lived. For me it doesn't matter where in the world I live because home is the people I've met.
It's the lesson I've learned, a lesson that I think my dad, as the son of an Air Force pilot, learned as a child.
I always enjoy listening to my dad and uncles and aunts talk about the places they lived growing up, because it's never the place that they talk most about, it's the people they knew there. It's this remember so-and-so and then the laughs that they share about the story about so-and-so.
So honestly, I think I would rather keep moving, so I can meet more people.
When I was younger and living in Las Vegas, one of my favorite Winnie the Pooh books included the lyrics to a song.
Make new friends
But keep the old
One is silver
The other gold
Those words have stuck with me, and have helped me find my true home. I think that the more I move the more I will have a home.