So...Where Are You From?

I can't really say that I "grew up" anywhere. I've moved around so much that I still have a hard time telling people "where I'm from" (which I know is bad grammar, but I know the rule, so I'm allowed to break it). As evidence of this non-growing-up-in-one-particular-place-itude, I currently have a Washington driver's license, Oregon license plates, and I live in Utah (don't tell the DMV).

My parents met, dated, and got married in Portland, Oregon, where I was born. I am the oldest of five kids, and the only one born in Portland. Because of the economic situation, my family briefly moved to Utah so my dad could go to school, but quickly got the heck out of there and back to the Pacific Northwest, when my dad took a job in Washington.

When we moved, I was almost four years old. Shortly afterwards, my baby sister was born. Then my little brother, and then my dad got job with a new company, which required us to move to Oregon. Over the next 11 years, we moved four more times and ended up back in Washington. By that time I was 18, and moved to Utah for school, back to Washington, to England for a mission, back to Washington, then back to Utah, where I've been (more or less) for the last four years. In the meantime, my family came full circle and moved back to Portland.

Now, if you've made it past my family's moving history to this point, thank you for sticking in there. But the point I'm trying to make here is this: I never grew up anywhere. I don't know what it's like to have lived in the same house my whole life. I don't get those kids who have such an incredibly hard time their first year of college, being away from their hometown. I don't understand the desire some people have of never wanting to leave home and who live in the same neighborhood as their parents and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. But that's because I've never had a hometown. I don't understand what a hometown is.

Sometimes my sister and I will say something about how we didn't grow up in one particular place when my dad is around. Then he'll start to get defensive about it, saying that if we hadn't moved, that Taylor and I wouldn't have had the opportunities that we do, etc. We try to calm him down and tell him to relax. Because we agree with him - we know that. We understand. And the thing is, we're not complaining about it. In fact, we're glad to have moved around like we did.

Personally, I'm glad that there's no one in my family's ward who feels comfortable enough at Christmastime, simply because I've grown up in the ward (regardless of whether or not they know me that well), to say something to me about how I should be married by now. I like going home and getting lost trying to get to my house, simply because I've never driven that way before. And I like that when I go home, I go home to see my family.

Maybe I've never had many close friends because of that, but I'm okay with that. Because what I learned, growing up in Mantec-Kinley-Spring-Port-Belling-land, was so much better than making a friend or two along the way. I learned that the most important part of life is family. And I'm grateful to my parents for teaching me that.