What Living in Almost Every Corner of the U.S has Taught Me
Home can be hard to find
Whenever a conversation takes a turn to the getting-to-know-you side of small talk and I’m asked, “where are you from?”, I’m often at a loss for words. Or I just start naming all of the many places I’ve lived, leaving them with no concrete answer.
It’s a simple question to which I believe most have a quick, well-dressed response. A gut reaction. I’m sure you are picturing a house, a town, or a school in your mind right now that you could describe in great detail if prompted.
For me, I can’t quite pinpoint one specific place.
Where did I grow up, primarily? Montana. Where was I born? Washington state. Where did I go to college and spend most summers as a child? Ohio. Where did I feel the best sense of community and acceptance? Hawaii. What does my driver’s license say? California. It’s hard to claim just one.
And none ever wanted to claim me back, either.
In Ohio, I was always the girl from Montana who only came in the summertime and didn’t attend school with the rest of the kids on the block. In Montana, I never had the chance to attend the highly social summer camps that fostered wonderful relationships for extracurricular activities during the school year. If you weren’t born and raised in California, then you’re not a true Californian. And if you’re not from Hawaii, then you might as well be a tourist.
So, where am I from? Nowhere and everywhere all at once.
I grew up in a midsize town in northeastern Montana (K-12). Keep in mind, Montana (the 4th largest state in the U.S.) has barely over a million people in its entirety. Therefore, midsize can be defined as roughly 12,000 people.
Montana, as you might picture it, is breathtaking in every sense of the word.
However, not all of Montana looks this way. I grew up in the frigidly cold plains of the North, where extreme winds often destroy buildings like a tornado and everything has a permanent, hazy dead-brown filter over it. In other words: not idyllic and pristine. Although considered ugly by most who grew up there, it still holds its own tragic beauty- in the Badlands where many known species of dinosaur fossils have been discovered. Or in the buffalo jumps where past indigenous people would corral wild buffalo and kill entire herds at once.
It’s the sort of town that most are born and raised in and continue on this course by having children of their own and never venturing far. You know just about everyone in town or shop at the same grocery store at the very least. This works for some, but not most. Not me.
So, as any cliche teen would, I moved far, far away- never to return.
College was on the horizon, and I didn’t want to simply repeat high school all over again with the same familiar faces while paying actual money in the process. However, I wanted to have some semblance of familiarity. So I opted to head for Ohio instead.
New people, better schools, I thought.
Plus, I’d been going there every summer and Christmas since I was eight because my dad lived there. There isn’t a whole lot to tell you about Ohio. It’s a great all-American place to grow up and call home. I spent summers on the lake (more of a pond, really) at my Dad’s house. I made lifelong friends as an adolescent. I enjoyed living there during college and still enjoy visiting my dad and my brother as often as I can to this day. However, I still longed for the adventure of a lifetime, and little did I know, we would receive a phone call that would send us 4,000 miles away. My husband works in healthcare, so he can find a job just about anywhere.
Hawaii
Let me just start by saying that I lived directly across the street from the beach — Waikiki beach. I often gallivanted bare-foot with a good Sauvignon Blanc in a thermos to watch the sunset over the ocean while surfers caught their final waves. Walking past the bustling crowds of tourists just arriving to celebrate a honeymoon or a family vacation, somehow I felt like I belonged.
This was where I felt the most sense of peace. I did outdoor yoga almost daily. I picked up surfing, and I’ve still got the scars to remind me how much I have to learn. I started walking dogs as a side gig while I finished my Master’s remotely. As you can imagine, this was pretty ideal for a 23-year-old.
I had never had more visitors in my life. We had lived in nearly half a dozen apartments before moving here, yet never had a guest. I suppose Honolulu is a tad more enticing to visit than Fairborn, Ohio. I was happy to host and see my island through my vigorous, doe-eyed vacationers’ wonder.
You can’t visit Oahu without venturing to the North Shore and visiting Waimea Bay. On the Eastside, you should take the Pali Highway until you reach the town of Kailua and fight 100 other cars trying to park in front of Lanikai Beach. Believe me, it’s worth it.
Unfortunately, we only lived here for one year. While I truly loved living there, I don’t think I could ever call this paradise home again. It didn’t belong to me.
I do still feel called to visit from time to time.
To visit a few friends who lived in the same condo as us. To visit the places that marked visceral memories for me. Like the time my husband’s wedding ring slipped off his finger while snorkeling, only to land inches in front of a sleeping shark’s mouth. (Don’t worry, he got it back without waking the shark, miraculously). Or the time our best friends came to visit and we all packed up and headed to the beach, only for me to realize that I had forgotten my swimsuit bottoms, forcing me to wear my thong as a ‘swimsuit.’ This is one I still hear about today, and laugh hysterically when we look back at the photographic evidence.
Hawaii is a place that I will continue to revisit, but will never call home.
California
California was a dream until it wasn’t. We left the tropical paradise of Hawaii because my husband was offered a once-in-a-lifetime position with one of the best universities in the world. We were happy to go. Besides, we got tired of living on an island after only a year if you can believe it.
We were in California for two years with no urge to leave, ever. Then 2020 came along and shifted our priorities along with the rest of the world. After being isolated with no family nearby and a newborn baby to care for, we realized just how important family is. To have a grandma close by to drop our son off on a Saturday afternoon is priceless. If you have these luxuries, do not take them for granted.
We decided to call it quits and pack (or sell, mostly) everything and head to Massachusetts to be closer to family. This would prove to be one of our best decisions (so far) and truly my favorite place to call home.
Massachusetts
I still use autocorrect to spell it. My husband is born and bred in this founding state, so we are surrounded by friends and family of all kinds. We only recently moved here, and have already managed to put down more roots than we ever have. We bought a house.
As someone who has picked up and moved more times than I can remember, this is hauntingly comforting. I’m excited at the prospect of giving my son a ‘childhood home’ to grow up in. Maybe I will even begin marking his height on a doorway, who knows.
I’ve learned that ‘home’ isn’t a place and it isn’t static.
It’s an ever-changing, ever-moving feeling and sense of self.
When I think of home, I think of my husband. I think of my dog Pickles, who died earlier this year after nearly ten years of friendship. I think of time spent at my Dad’s house on the lake in rural Ohio and trips to Cedar Point with him as a young girl. Images of my son, a person who I’ve only known for two years now, flood my mind when I think of home.
Is there one singular image that pops into my mind when trying to remember my ‘childhood home’? No.
There aren’t any smells that trigger flashbacks to a repeatedly baked dish made by my mother in an imaginary house I never grew up in. Watching movies play out about the all-American dream of the perfect family and the perfect house always inspired immense jealousy for me. I wondered what it would be like to grow up behind that white picket fence. To have my parents still living in it, happily married until they were old and gray.
But then I remember all of the amazing things I’ve seen and the spectacularly diverse places that i’ve been able to call home.
And I smile.
I can create a sense of home for my son to feel safe and loved and that’s all that matters in this world to me.
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