"it's a 'two-parter', mom": part one: the adventure of staying put

Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, California, Japan, Maryland, Germany, Texas, Indiana and now Minnesota are all places I've called 'home' since I was born.

With my dad in the Air Force we moved every three to four years. I loved moving and I was good at it. I loved packing (although admittedly, my mom probably did most of the packing now that I think about it) and I loved unpacking and setting up my new room. I was good at making friends and being excited about being in new places.

I felt very aware that this was unique and something to be cherished. Not everyone has climbed Mount Fuji when they were 10 years old or been excused from school to march in a protest at 12 in our nation's capital or spent their 16th birthday in Paris on a school trip with some of their best friends. I felt I was living in a storybook. I loved it.

I loved that I could 'start again' with each school I attended, each place we moved. I could reinvent myself. I could be mysterious. I could quietly (or not quietly) be the object of interest for a spell because nobody knew me but maybe they wanted to.

And that place, too, could be mysterious to me and have a chance to be something different because of how I perceived it. And I relished its unfamiliarity and loved getting to know it--full of wonder and knowing it just long enough to truly appreciate it and never too long to take it for granted.

I loved how my family held the center. Wherever we were, I knew that home was where my mom, my dad, my sister, and my brother were. That was the constant. That was the sun my world revolved around and as a long as we still quoted 'What About Bob?' and had beef stroganoff on Mondays, everything would be fine. And it was.

Did I cry as the plane took off from Frankfurt knowing that I may never go back to Germany when we moved to Texas at the tail-end of my junior year in high school?

Yes.

I bawled. That was very hard.

By the time we landed in Texas was I ready for a new adventure?

Yes. With a tight throat and smudged mascara, humming along to Weezer in my discman I knew it was going to be difficult at first, but great.

Have I ever wished that we only lived in one place and I grew up with the same friends I had in kindergarten through high school and lived in the same house?

No.

Never.

So imagine my surprise when my husband, our little black dog and I bought our first house in Minneapolis two years after we were married with all intentions of fixing it up and moving on in five years and now 11 years later--we're still in the same house, in the same city, and have populated said house with three beings that have sprung from my body.

What then? What is the adventure in staying put?