on mobility

i've never understood the impulse to stay in one place. i understand that some people possess it, that there are those who are perfectly content to graduate from high school, go to college close to home (or not go to college at all), come back to town with a degree, get a job, marry their high school sweetheart, raise their children in the place where they were raised, live, retire, and die all within a 5-mile radius. i also understand that there are people who like to put penises in their mouths; i don't get that one either. it really does take all kinds, and as far as i can figure, the impulse to move or the impulse to stay in one place is no different.

i was raised by people who did not stay in the same place. both of my parents went away to college, and after they got married, they moved even farther away from home. neither of them ever suggested to me that this was the "right" way to do it, and every time i try to move farther away, my mother threatens to cry. but that's where i come from, and implicit lessons can be some of the strongest ones.

i get these incredible bouts of wanderlust. i get restless if i stay in one place for too long. i've never traveled as much as i would like, but sometimes it's just time for a new city. frankly, i'm surprised i've stayed in pittsburgh for as long as i have.

i just don't get how, in a world this wide, a person can be content to stay in the same place and limit their experience that way. there's something to be said for a sense of home--i want to find it. (i wonder if i will ever feel that need to "settle down," to buy a house, plant a garden, and let my children complete their entire education in a single school district. part of me hopes that i will; it seems unfair to do otherwise. but i'm still waiting. i have yet to find a place i'd be willing to sit still.) but there are so many different kinds of home: the house where my parents live, the town where i grew up, the campus where i went to college, the haus my college friends lived in where i learned all the most important lessons, the comfort in a circle of people who honor each other with mutual respect and affection, the passenger seat of my best friend's car, the sound of my partner's heartbeat when i lay my head on his chest. home is not a place so much as a feeling for me, and it's one i can find anywhere given the right circumstance. and if i can find home anywhere, why should i not try to find it in as many different places as possible, and learn the many ways people in different places make it for themselves?


sidenote: i'm postponing writing a piece about anger, for reasons i will address when i finally get around to it, which are the same reasons i need to write the piece in the first place. my life is in chaos given the upcoming move, and i'm not writing nearly enough (theme for the year). counting my days left in Pittsburgh in single digits.