Growing up I lived in the most perfect little homeostatic environment.
Not that things didn’t ever changed just if they did, it was so gradual you
almost wouldn’t notice. It was perfect. Then I turned 15. Bam! Everything in my
world changed: my friends, my church, my family dynamics, and even me.
Everything. It was awful. But then I started to acclimate. Then I tuned 17. Bam!
And it all changed again: new state, new home, new friends, new church,
(really) new family dynamics, and once again, I felt myself change.
Since that time my life has been a revolving door. When
people in college asked me where I was from, I never could answer. “Where am I from?
Well, I was born in Chicago, raised in New Hampshire, just moved here from
northern Illinois, but my parents live in Ohio (but my younger brother lives in
Wisconsin), and I live here in Deerfield, but my grandpa lives in Des Plaines
so I go there on the weekend. But oh my boyfriend still lives in northern
Illinois – so that’s kinda home too.” People looked at me like I was crazy. But
more than that, I felt crazy. (In the six years I have had my driver’s license I
have had four different licenses’ due to the constant moving.) Where was I from? Who was I? Wasn’t your home supposed
to help you establish you identity. If so, who was I?
After 3 or 4 years of being unsure of where home really was,
my parents eventually moved back to New Hampshire and I felt some sort of normalcy
return. I could finally say “I’m from New Hampshire but now I live in Des
Plaines.” (I was literally giddy when I realized that now simple answer to the
question, “where are you from?” One doesn’t think about these things until they
are all of the sudden very complicated.) But then things changed again.
This time really big changes. I got married. So I now I had
another new home, new state, new church, and most of all a new husband and a
new role as a wife. This change I like. A lot. Except for the new state part.
Now things are about to change again. I’m finally moving
home. To Des Plaines, close to the greatest city in the world. And I am
excited, but change is still hard.
People say home is where the heart is. I believe that.
Unfortunately, I have left pieces of my heart all over this great country. Des
Plaines and New Hampshire have the biggest chunks, Deerfield and Berlin
Heights, Ohio also have pieces. Harvard, Illinois/Lake Geneva, Wisconsin have a
small piece. And with each place I left, I knew I had less of my heart to give
to the next place. So when we moved here to Salem, WI. I never imagined I’d
leave a piece of my heart here. But I can already tell I am going to.
As I begin
to dismantle our apartment, the same old melancholy of change sets in. This has
been my home for a year and half (the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was
17.) For the first time, this little apartment was mine. Not my parents but
mine. I paid the rent and the electric and the cable and the insurance on it.
It was mine. Well mine and Zack’s. It was also the first place Zack and I lived
as husband and wife. This is where he brought me after our wedding. This is our
home. And now a piece of me is staying here too.
And this is why change is hard. Because every time change happens
(no matter how excited I am for where we are going) I have to leave. And I hate
to leave. I hate to leave because I know a piece of me will stay here long
after I have left.
But isn’t this what makes who we are? Are we not the sum of
our experiences? If I left without leaving a piece of me here would I remember the
growth and insight I gained here? This is why change is hard. It forces me to
leave part of myself behind so that I may enter in to person it had helped me
become. And this is hard.
Change is hard. But needed.
I have a love/hate relationship with it. But still: change is hard…
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