Wanderlust

Starting when I was about 11 years old and not really ending until I was in my mid twenties, I moved quite a bit.  

Between 11 and 20, I probably moved at least 10 times...and pretty far away from the last location each time.  

Once I got married, my husband and I moved from South Carolina to Tennessee, living in the same town, but moving houses twice before our (so far) final move into the house we bought 12 or so years ago.

"We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls." 
Anais Nin

After spending most of my life moving on and on and on, it was a huge adjustment for things to stay the same.  I had learned to not get too tied down, too close to anyone, because we'd just leave anyway, so what was the point?

For the longest time, it was so strange for tax time to come around and NOT rent a Uhaul truck.  Even now there are days, though they've gotten fewer and farther between, that I'm in my car driving to work and I think to myself "It's time to just keep driving".  And for a split second, I think I might skip going to work and skip town and never look back.  In a lot of ways, it would be so much easier.

Using up hoarded stuff!  Maybe not great, but at least it's getting used!

But the older I get, and the more I get used to staying in one place, I find myself understanding the other side of the coin: that it's also easy to stay.

When you go someplace new, you have the opportunity to be someone new...a person you've never been before.  You can be whatever you want.

But I've learned that when you stay in one place, you are more free to be yourself.

I mean, if you want to change, you're free to do it any time, but you're with people who know you.  They know your quirks and flaws and weirdness...all the things you might find embarrassing...to the point where maybe they aren't so embarrassing after all.

Meeting new people is kind of hard.  You want to make a good first impression, I think.

But the old people have already gotten their impression of you...you don't have to try as hard...or, at least in my case, you don't have to try TOO hard.  

The people you've known for a long time have already either accepted or rejected you.  Sure, you can change and you can try to change people's perception of you...but...I don't know...it's almost like there's less at stake.

That image was an advertisement for something in a magazine that I kept for SO LONG because I really loved the image.  I'm glad it finally has a home!

I find myself being more and more comforted by routine.

I never used to be that way.

My goal used to be to live in a conversion van and travel and never be tied down to anything.

But the older I get, the more it seems like, instead of being tied down, I'm rooted.

I don't feel like I'm being held back by sameness and monotony, 

but instead I'm nurtured by consistency.

I can still branch out in any direction I choose, but I'm not being tossed around like a tumbleweed in the wind without any real control over where I'm going.

If wanderlust is longing to travel, maybe what I'm feeling is linger-lust...longing to stay in one place.

I wouldn't say the desire for adventure is gone, not by a long shot...

but I've started to appreciate the familiar too.

If only for today, I'm glad to be in this place, where I am known, at least as well as any of us can be, and where I am accepted, in spite of, or perhaps because of, all my quirks and weirdness.