For the second or third time lately, I had a reason to refer back to the statistic I compiled for my Rotary self-introductory speech. When I was talking about what got me into real estate, I totaled up the number of times in my life I changed addresses, from the time I was an infant, through each year in the dorms, to all military moves (but discounting the extended stays in hotels or "TLF" - temporary lodging facilities), all the way up to the last one to this address at Smith Park West. I moved 33 times in less than half a century. It taught me a lot, on how to streamline house hunting, on what sort of stuff is important to keep and what is best given to a thrift store, and how to make friends very quickly. It also instilled some bad habits, like a recurring restlessness that kicks in just as I start to feel settled in a location.
I've been at my current address roughly three years and two weeks. I promised when I got here that this was the last home, and I would be here until I die. I am not backing down from that vow, but I caught myself today starting to distrust the level of stability I've earned in the three years since moving to this town. I was taking a rarely-traveled route across town to a Rotary party, just to mix things up. (Side note: city and county planners in Colorado are generally really good about laying out transportation routes on grids so there are seemingly infinite ways to cover ground, unlike back east where neighborhoods look like alveoli in lungs and navigating by car is panic-inducing.) I was thinking, as I drove past the older hospital in town, that it's usually about the time that I feel comfortable with back routes and short cuts that it becomes time to move again. I would get attached to a town, and feel like it's really my home, and then the air force would come along and say "Up and at 'em, kid. Say goodbye to your friends, and hope they are better correspondents than you are." It didn't necessarily make me reluctant to love and trust in each new location, but it did instill a sense of dread that it was all only temporary.
The longest I lived anywhere was growing up in Oklahoma, where I was born, where I came back to for months at a time in between my dad's military moves, where I went to middle school and high school (longest stretch, totaling seven years, with two addresses), where I bounced back to in between college terms, and where I took my own kids to live while their dad attended three different air force schools. Whenever people asked me where I was from, I would always say, "I'm from Oklahoma, but I live in __X__." I've had a connection to Colorado now almost as long as the Oklahoma time. I'm here for the duration. At what point will I feel prepared to say "I'm from Colorado?" Will I ever adopt that abbreviated explanation, or will I always feel like I have to use all the qualifiers from a life lived in transit?
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