#recounting

for at least the first few years of my life, my family lived in the country. I don’t actually know where it was, and I only have a handful of vague memories. we weren’t there long; I believe we moved either while my mother was pregnant, or just after my brother was born, so it only could’ve been two years at most. obviously this can’t feel like home.

so by the time I was three, we’d moved once, from our country home into suburban apartments. I remember one of my brother’s early birthdays in those apartments. there were a handful of other children in our complex, but I wasn’t allowed to play too often. this place was too temporary to ever feel like a home.

within a few years, we moved again, from one apartment into another. there were no other children in this second complex. this is the earliest I remember being in school; I remember being tiny, trying to learn math, and the one time my father stayed home to teach me, he got angry because I was drawing faces on my numbers. this place hasn’t felt like home in years, naturally.

we moved again before my seventh birthday. I know this because I remember getting roller blades for my seventh birthday, and was trying to get my mother to help me practice going up and down the driveway, because we were finally in a house again, but she spent the evening talking to the new neighbors instead. we stayed there for about six years, and that was the first time I’d ever spent more than two years in one place. I changed schools two or three times while we were there. this is where I got my first DS and finally made connections, although it was with fictional characters. this place is too different, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

but then we moved again right as I was starting high school. I changed schools again. there were no other children anywhere in our neighborhood. I was still kept isolated anyways. this house is where Ii was most comfortable, because that was where I learned to drive, it’s where I got my first job, it’s where I was finally able to start making more permanent friends from school. I still talk to them. they’re still my best friends. this location has changed so much since I’ve been gone, going back doesn’t feel like home anymore.

we weren’t there quite as long, but five years is still a lot longer than I spend in most places. I moved into dorms for my first year of college, so that was the sixth time I’d moved. obviously a different state for a single school year can’t feel like home.

while I was gone, my family moved out of our last house and into a small rental space while waiting for our new home to be built. so I ended up in a completely foreign place for Thanksgiving and Christmas. my seventh move. it was cozy, but again, too temporary to ever be comfortable. could never be a home.

and then after the disaster that was my first college year, I moved, for the eighth time, from the dorms into our current house, in this tiny town. this place isn’t home. I’ve been ready for years to just leave my family and never look back; I hate this place, and I can’t ever feel at home here.

I have so much trouble connecting with people and I can’t feel at home anywhere. ideally, I’ll move out into my own home, and then maybe I’ll move in with a theoretical husband, and hopefully that’s it. but with my luck, I’ll just turn out to be endlessly uprooted.

it’s funny that my parents kept me completely isolated during vital development years, and now they get horrifically angry that I don’t know how to interact with people on even a basic level, much less on the level I’m supposed to be at.

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Jeremiah  52:24-30 The captain of the guard (for King Nebuchadnezzar) took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 25 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, seven men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the principal scribe of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the…

Jeremiah  52:24-30 24 The captain of the guard (for King Nebuchadnezzar) took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 25 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, seven men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the principal scribe of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the…

Jeremiah  52:24-30 The captain of the guard (for King Nebuchadnezzar) took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 25 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, seven men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the principal scribe of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the…

Jeremiah  52:24-30 The captain of the guard (for King Nebuchadnezzar) took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 25 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, seven men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the principal scribe of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the…