When Home is Not a Place

Before moving away to college, I'd only known two houses as home, and they lived just across town from one another.  

Eighteen years surrounded by the same familiar faces and places, and the handful of friends I'd made when I was still in diapers.

My husband, on the other hand, spent most of his childhood moving from one overseas Air Force base to another, leaving a trail of bread crumb houses - with plenty of captivating stories to tell about each one - across Europe.

All I knew growing up was roots, and all he knew was the near constant itch for adventure and some place new.

When we got married, we bought our first little place together, and, for a couple of years, that was home for both of us.

Red bricks, fresh paint, and a yard for our someday children to play in.

When plans changed, and my husband's career path made a sudden and unexpected twist that lead him to the Army just a few weeks before our first son, Jacob, was born, he already knew a whole lot about what we were getting ourselves into, but I had no idea.

To be honest, at first, I struggled with it all.  

And, by struggled, I really mean: I was a mess.

The uprooting, the eighteen months of separation the first two years, learning what it meant to be a new mom and soldier's wife at the same time, all on my own - this is a common picture of what it's like for a family transitioning to military life, and, for me, it wasn't a pretty one.

Our lives were shaken, then turned upside down like a snow globe, but the pieces that were left to float around above our heads for a little while, just out of reach, eventually made their way back down to us, again, and we have come to appreciate where we've been, the lessons we've had to learn the hard way, and where we're headed, now.

Now that I am beginning to understand what it's like to get the itch for some place new, and we've already moved more times than my husband has years of experience in his military career, home is not a place, anymore.

The walls we live within are only temporary.   

Instead, I have come to believe home is the love we build with the lives that intertwine with our own. 

For me, it's my husband and our boys.

This blog, When Home is Not a Place, is for them, and it's about our journey - learning how to thrive wherever we are. 

Read more About Me, My Mission, and Why I Blog.

I'd love to hear... who/where/what is home for you?