Distance is a funny thing. These days I call Woodstock, IL "home." Woodstock is precisely 263.56 miles from my childhood home. The first time I moved away from there I landed 126.1 miles away in Champaign. That venture didn't work out. ... And so I moved backwards 122.1 miles to an apartment in Jacksonville. After roughly two more years of that I moved 4347.3 miles to Paris for a study abroad program. If you are saying to yourself, Wait a minute, studying abroad isn't exactly moving, then you need to have a conversation with my sister who coordinated packing efforts to get me across the Atlantic. After a brief relocation or reluctant retreat to Jacksonville I jumped 334.89 miles to Ames, Iowa where I found a bit of myself, a masters degree, and the first place that I would make into a "home." One of the scariest moves I have made, however, is my move to Woodstock (336.04 miles, if you happened to be wondering, from Ames).
I say scariest because, despite the number of times I told myself "I am an adult" when I overloaded a UHaul truck to graduate school, I wasn't really an adult yet. I was still a kid in school. The day I got the final notice from a PhD program that my time spent on the wait list was to be, ultimately, unsuccessful, I suddenly found myself staring at a bigger and much more intimidating wall of impending adulthood. Self, I said, you've been training for 24 years. Now it's time to use that training and get a real job. And I did find a job, two to be exact, in the middle of Chicago suburbs, as many miles from where I grew up as the last place I had called "home."
And here I sit, writing out this thought that's been keeping me awake.
Tomorrow, the first full day of my Thanksgiving vacation, I will not sit. You see, somehow, no matter where I move, I seem to be near loved ones. I'm a mere 35.76 miles from my brother in Rockford which, I'll admit, was by design. The amazing thing is, though, that I landed a mere 27.85 miles away from a dear, dear friend who was just returning from a two-year pause in Japan. That wasn't by design, but I'm sure glad it worked out.
Here is where we get to the Thanksgiving part--the busiest travel days of the year. I'm not traveling this holiday but I have friends who are. Way back in Ames, I met a good friend. After he graduated he took a job in New York City but, for the holiday, he will be back in his hometown...which just happens to be 34.56 miles from my new "home."
Just goes to show that no matter how many times "home" changes, if you keep your eyes open, you find enough people to always feel at home.
From Portland to L.A to Hollywood to New York City to Ames and Des Moines to Albania to Springfield, Woodson and Geneva, happy Thanksgiving, people.
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