Did you move around a lot as a kid? Why? How did it change you?

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When I was a kid, my mom threw my father out and remarried a military guy. I moved from South Louisiana to California, then to North Carolina, Long Island New York, then finally to Hawaii. I joined the military myself and went to boot camp in San Antonio, tech school in Biloxi Mississippi, then finally to my duty station in the Ogden Utah area. I left the military and moved to Atlanta at 22, still here after 12 years.

Before I moved here, I hadn’t lived anywhere for longer than 4 years since leaving Louisiana. I got mad after about a year and decided to move back to Utah. After a minor detour in Johnstown Pennsylvania I made it back to Utah, where I found nothing was the same as I’d left it. I didn’t want to build an entirely new life in Utah so I moved back after several months.

Now I’m grown, considering a move to Charleston, SC. Reason is my family lives there. But I’m skittish. My home is here in the ATL. Moving around gave me a mental flexibility that I just don’t see in people that are rooted. But people that do have those deep roots seem to be a lot happier.

My ATL career would have to end before I’d ever consider a move. I built this life here, for myself. It suits my needs, needs that are very specific and took a long time to understand. I can start anew and it wouldn’t even be that hard. I’d just dust off that old mental flexibility that I built up when I was a kid.

But it’s way easier for me to just solve (band-aid) the problems that being in Atlanta while my family is in Charleston creates than it is to contemplate actually uprooting myself and building a whole new career and life in a new city. Driving out there 6–10 times a year to get face time with my mother is a good enough compromise for me. At least for now.

When my parents pass I’ll contemplate relocating outside the country. But relocating should be considered a major life event, only to be considered in circumstances that truly warrant it. Those connections you build up over years really become a part of who you are and it sucks to just cut them off like that.