House(s) That Built Me

Happy birthday to my fabulous fiancé!! He's the most amazing man, my best friend, the absolute perfect person for me and I love him! :) Sixty days until our happy day!!

I got to see my new house on Saturday; a precious two-bedroom apartment with a fireplace (if I'm moving to the Arctic, I must have warmth).

This will be my 13th move in 24 years. I am a professional at packing. I can be ruthless and weed out old magazines, old clothes, old books, old purses. I can organize and box things up efficiently. I have the physical skills. The emotional skills, however...those are little harder to come by.

On average I have moved every 1.8 years. Not always to a different city, but then again, sometimes to a different country. I've lived in apartments, dorm rooms, houses, and an RV (after which I vowed to have a closet large enough to hang everything, even the unmentionables). I have shared a bedroom, a bathroom, an 8ft living space. During one move, I packed all my earthly belongings for nearly a year in one suitcase. I can do this thing called moving, and I can do it well.

Looking back, I have specific memories from each of the houses/apartments/dorm rooms/RV I have lived in as far back as my 3rd birthday party on Starlett Lane in Connecticut (I don't remember the few before that).

My 5th birthday was in the basement of our first house in central Missouri. I also remember my first best friend spending many slumber party nights in that house with me. Our neighbors had a little girl about my age that I was close to also. We made secret forts in the woods, swam, road bikes, played kick ball. It was in our years in that house that we took our first trip to the Philippines when I was seven.

We moved not long after that to our second home in the same city. We rented that home until my dad finished building the third home we would occupy in Missouri. While we lived in the rental, we gave our dog Buckwheat away. Our new home did not have a fenced yard and he was a beagle, an outside dog. We gave him to a nice man with lots of land for him to run on.

The new house, the one my dad built was #3. It was beautiful. We made it our own. We had a fireplace and a big backyard. My sister and I picked mulberries from the tree in our big backyard. We were always having people over from church, enjoying lots of company in our big kitchen and living room.

From that 1700 sq. ft. home, we moved into a 30ft RV just after my 11th birthday. What's 1670 feet? The four of us shared a bathroom. My sister and I had a closet about the size of match box until we got creative and made a closet in the back of our econo van. We had a refrigerator that was about 2 feet wide. And there we lived for about 3 years.

We made our first long term trip overseas when I was 13. We lived in Manila for 10 months. When we packed for that trip I had one suitcase to my name. And I made it work. We lived in someone else's home, used their beds, their dishes, their furniture. There I had my 14th birthday and made lifelong friendships.

Back to the States we went. Back to the RV. And then, a year and half later, back to to Manila again. This time with ALL of our stuff. Our beds, our furniture, our dishes. We stayed for three years, and moved from our condo to a house during that time.

Back to the States again when I was 18, into college dorm 1 of 3. Three years of college, traveling, singing, making the best of friends. Graduation came in '09 and into our first apartment my sister and I went when I was 22.

That brings us to today. Last night I brought home some boxes to continue backing up my things to make my 13th move. I have been thinking about how I want to decorate and personalize the first home I will share with my future husband. I have lots of ideas... :)

As I reflect on my many relocations while preparing for my next one, I find myself strongly relating to Miranda Lambert's song, The House That Built Me. In the song she remembers her childhood home and hopes to draw strength from it. For me, home was wherever my family was. Home was the life that our traveling family made. Home was more of a security inside me, than any actual building. I always knew Mom and Dad would make sure I had a pillow and a blanket and that Daddy would pray with me before I went to sleep, petitioing the angels to guard me in my slumber. Mom and Dad always made wherever we happened to be, home. That security made me who I am. The life I lived, all the relocations, all the start-from-scratch beginnings, made me the person I am today, and hopefully will impact who I will become as I start from scratch once again.

Do I regret it? Do I wish I had lived in the same house my whole life? No way. I loved my life. Maybe not particularly at the time, but looking back, I am so glad I lived the way I did. I was exposed to new cultures, new ways of living. I met tons of people, made many lifelong friendships, and ultimately learned the valuable lesson of loving people. All because I moved a lot.

It would take me a very long time, several thousand dollars, and few plane tickets to visit all the houses where I have lived. But if I could see each one of them right now, I would enjoy all the memories that would come to mind, and realize that they each are apart of who I have become. They have each in their own way, changed my life.