When you think of "where you're from," what is the mental picture that comes to mind? Is it your childhood house or maybe even the streets of the town in which you spent your high school years? The concept of "home" is different to everybody, but one thing that I'm noticing as a reoccurring occurrence in my life is being asked regularly where I'm from and/or where is home. This is such a basic question and should be a pretty simple one to answer, however it's one I'm constantly struggling to find the answer to.
About five months ago, I packed up my life and moved 1,700 miles away from the place I had lived for roughly 13 years in Georgia. This wasn't the town that I had spent my early childhood years in and it wasn't a place that ever felt like "home" to me. For most people who lived in this small town, this was their home and the only home they knew, but I just couldn't relate. I was born in one place, grew up in another and then went to high school in another. And even though all of these places are just in two different states, I know none of them I will probably ever return to since there just isn't anything there for me anymore. These places...all just parts of my past now and nothing more.
When someone does ask me where I'm from, I used to wish I could just give a simple answer. I wished I had a hometown that I had an attachment to and could announce with a smile on my face. However, I think this was more about the fact that I'm not a fan of small talk and a one word answer is quick and straight to the point. Trying to explain, "Well, I just moved from here but grew up here... yada yada" is just cumbersome.
When I really stop to think about it though, other than making small talk simpler, I don't know if there would really be a plus for me to have a hometown to return to. What would I necessarily gain from having one? In all honesty, I don't believe that I would gain anything more if I did have a home to go back to.
After simply accepting the fact that I can't consider one place as my home, I started to realize that there are actually a lot of great things about not being able to claim any one location as my home. I didn't exactly move around a lot growing up, so I typically did get fairly comfortable with living in a place, but at the same time not too comfortable where I would never want to leave.
But the most important thing that I realized that not having a "hometown" makes me free to do so many more things in life as opposed to being tied down to a location. I hear a lot of people, even at a young age, saying they want to travel, live various places and then end up right back home when they get older. Or even that they would like to try somewhere new, but don't want to be too far away from "home."
While it's great for some people to have that type of plan or idea, I like to think that my options of where I will live in the future are endless and quite unknown at the moment. After making this fairly big move recently, I now know that I could pretty much move anywhere that I wanted to. Don't get me wrong, I basically just moved out here to Colorado and I absolutely love it, but just knowing that I have that type of freedom to pick a place and possibly start all over once again is a little empowering to me. I definitely am looking forward to making another big move at some point in the future.
So, typically when someone does ask me the dreaded question of, "Where are you from?" I usually just give them the two states of Florida and Georgia and kind of go from there. If they're interested, curious or just plain nosey...I might go into more detail for them but like most awkward networking and random bar/coffee shop conversations, I try to keep it simple and low key and remind myself that it's okay to be without a hometown. Being without one is essentially part of who I am and something I now know that I wouldn't care to change.
