Personal Narrative Draft

I’ve called many places home in my short 22 years. Luckily for me, most of the places were in just a few cities- we moved houses, but I was able to stay in the same schools most of the time. I have lived in around 25 different homes, but I actually can’t even recall them all any more. I seem to remember a house we lived in for a short time in between two other houses. I know what city it was in, but can’t remember where it was located within the city.

I can only blame myself for a handful of the different homes; I have gone abroad for school twice, and happily went out of state for college. All of these occasions requiring more packing, more moving, more “homes.”

People have very drastically different ideas of what constitutes home and what they are willing to call home. I found in college that many people hated to call their dorm rooms “home.” People who have lived in the same place for many years, and they equate their sense of home and that security with the physical building. In college, I found many friends who did not decorate their dorm space, and do little to make it their own. For me, I have found that I can anywhere where my bed can be found, I willingly call “home.” I can quickly settle in, add touches of myself to the space, and it is home.

As a result of constantly moving, I find myself attached to my material memories and belongings. My mom calls me a pack-rat; I prefer to think of it as keeping many memories. I also find myself unable to pack lightly when I travel. Which I think has to do with my desire to make where ever I am in the world feel like my home. I had moved most of my belonging to Michigan from Florida by my sophomore year of school and was quick to decorate my apartment in Thailand. Sitting on a bungalow porch on a beach in southern Thailand, I talked at length with someone about how you never really know “home” until you leave it. This is when I began to realize that I could be at home in the world as long as I had a bed. Even in my current small cluttered apartment that I hate I have been able to find a sense of home. I put up some artwork, set up my bed, and find in the space a sense of safety and escape- as much as I hate the space itself.

Even as a child I loved the privacy of my own room. The worst punishment my parents very gave me was taking the knob from my door so I couldn’t close my door to my private domain any longer. Having a bed represents that sense of privacy for me. I would love to curl up on my bed, and read, do my homework, or chat with my friends on the phone. As I travel more and more, and lost the space of having my own room, my bed began to signify my home space. A simple space of a bed provides me comfort, security, and relaxation. Bed signifies the opportunity to close my eyes on the problems of today and open your eyes again with a new opportunity for tomorrow. As an extremely vivid dreamer, bed provides an escape with from the realities of this world. Bed can be a place where I go to experience immense pleasure, or where I go when worn out from immeasurable pain. You can easily decorate your bed, adding touches of yourself to the space. While one of my homes is always where my family is, I found that when I moved away to college, I needed to find a way to make my space my home so that I can find that security. For many, this sense of comfort and relaxation is provided by their entire space of their house, I have found that sense in the space of my bed.

Now that I’m getting ready to start “my own life” and in eventually (in a long while) my own family, this is something I think about a lot. I’m crazy good and packing boxes and cars full of stuff. And I don’t need to be able to see out the back of the car to drive. Moving does have its benefits. More than anything I’m ready to move and stay put for more than one year. I know that with my passion for travel, I will continue to have many more homes in my day. But with the ideas of “growing up” and starting a family, I debate whether it would be more beneficial for our family to move for a while, or do I want to plant my roots firmly from the beginning? I wonder where my next home will be with my graduation quickly approaching- choosing where to move can be a big decision. I do love to travel, but after so many years of packing everything up and moving at the end of every year, I look forward greatly to the opportunity to settle down for more than twelve months, but where do I go?