Monday, November 3, 2014

"I've Been Everywhere..."



This meme popped up on F-book. It bluntly declares that "staying is settling (for)" your current arrangements. It posits five good reasons to drag or cut the anchor rope and find yer own private Idaho:
1. Just getting away.
2. Doing something new (obverse of the medal).
3. Chase love (or whatever).
4. Flee love (or whatever).
5. Start over.

No earth-shaking revelations, but it prompted me to consider my own peregrinations and the reasons for them. I'd say this life had been 'mildly peripatetic,' until 2002. My folks moved five times, in and between three states--Illinois, Ohio, and NMex), before I left home at 18, in '64... We moved, as a family, mainly for business/economic reasons. At least one move, though, the last, back to NM was expressly a "Start over," both for my parents and for me.

Including those, then, I've "lived"--resided for more than six months--in one 'foreign' country, and no fewer than 15 cities in 10 different states. I landed back here ('Burque) 12 years ago, and will probably stay here, if the water holds out.

To enumerate: I left home and joined the USAF--to 'get away!' I was stationed at San Antonio and Wichita Falls, Tx.  Next I was nearly 3 years in Germany, all of it at one base, though I went on a couple of brief TDY assignments. Then back to the USofA, tidewater Virginia.

On separation, I moved to 'Burque (something new: UNM), and then back to Santa Fe again (something new: jobs). Eventually, I moved to Cal, and lived in LA, and the East Bay, and thence to Seattle. All for "something new": jobs, scenery, life, world changes...

"Chasing love" got me to Santa Barbara, and on to Baton Rouge, LA and Norman, OK. But just about every stop along the way has involved "Starting over."

So now here I am: settled. I'm okay with it.