Gypsy

I’m a gypsy. I’ve always loved moving around. I’ve attributed it to my egg donor dragging me all over hell’s half acre throughout my life, but I’ve begun to think there might be more to it. Sure, some people have the travel bug. They want to see and experience all the world has to offer. That really is what I thought I wanted for myself. And to a point, it’s true. But if I really sit back and look at the people around me, I begin to see something different.

Take my husband for example. He lived in one place his whole life. Until he met me, he’d never even been on a plane. To me, that was unheard of. I’m no jetsetter, but I’ve been through most of the US and Canada. He had only been to three states, and two of them bordered the one he called home. For most of his life, he stayed on the family property, even after he was married and had kids of his own. I think that kind of rootedness is beautiful. It’s what my grandpa always preached for our family. But the fact that he was content staying there and never leaving baffles me. I could never.

Then I look at my own kids. Where I traveled the country with my mother, being carted from one man and one place to another, my kids were raised in one general area. We switched houses, but that was about it. I moved to make their lives better, not because I had found a new flavor of the week.

I’m not claiming to be a perfect mother. I made mistakes. But my children were always my first priority, even when they didn’t realize it.

My middle son is about to move out this way because the state where I raised him has become too expensive. His goal is to move back there someday, or maybe to the state where he was born. He wants roots. That makes me realize how abnormal my own thought process feels. I can’t sit still. It’s hard enough for me to stay in one house longer than a year, let alone the same damn state. I stayed in my last state for almost 20 years, the longest I’ve ever spent anywhere. It became home because it’s where I chose to be. My mother didn’t drag me there. There was no man she was following. I built a life there that I loved and found a chosen family that showed up for me in ways my own never did.

I said I’d never leave, but when push came to shove, the pull to go became too much. I’ve been where I am for around three years now, and I’m ready to get the heck out of Dodge again. Thankfully, that’s happening soon because my husband found a different job. I wanted to love it here. I really did. But I don’t think this was ever meant to be home.

Back to why I move…

Depression.

I really think that’s it. I don’t mean the sad, boo hoo kind. I mean the deep-rooted, it’ll never go away, clinical kind. Or maybe it’s the kind that would take more therapy than I could ever afford, because we all know how deep my mommy issues go. Either way, most people seem able to stay put when life asks them to. I don’t know how.

Most people move once or twice unless the military, a job, or some other circumstance pulls them elsewhere. For so many people, property stays in families. Homes are passed down. Roots are protected. Not mine. My grandpa died, and my grandma sold the property he worked so hard for. I wanted that house and that land. I wanted the memories, the security, and the safety it brought to my heart. That was the only place that ever felt like home.

But I remember when I was a little girl sitting in the back seat of the car, I’d watch house after house go by. I’d imagine the people inside living their happy lives, daddies hugging their little girls or playing trains on the floor with their sons while mommies baked cookies. It was especially great at night when the windows were illuminated from the inside against a pitch black sky and I’d get a real glimpse of the lives they were living inside. Sometimes catching sight of something as simple as the corner of a green afghan against a tan floral couch could send me into hours of story time in my mind. I could have built an entire town of the families I created, all living the happy lives I wished were mine. My imagination would run wild for days, all from one tiny glimpse inside the house of a stranger.

And so I move. From state to state, city to city, house to house, always searching for the happiness I created in my mind as a little girl. I don’t think it will ever matter how happy I am on the outside. My mother took too much from Little Me: stability, safety, trust, family, and the freedom to love without guilt. She turned me away from people who loved me, played mind games I’m still untangling, and taught me that no matter how much I gave, it would never be enough. It never will be. Maybe that’s why I keep moving. Maybe I’m still looking for the place where enough finally feels like enough.

Maybe I’m still looking for the place where I finally feel like enough…

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Lynae

Writer • Healing Advocate

Rewriting the stories I once survived