On Moving

Have you moved as a child? Yes, I'm talking to you. There are a few things that people who move often while growing up learn about life. These life lessons stay with them:

1) Nothing is permanent.
Friend, family, home, favorite tree with the swings. They'll be gone.

2) Friends forget.
You forget them, hopefully before they forget you.

3) Memories are nice,
but holding on to the past is a pointless waste of energy. The past won't return the favor.

With that come other mini-rules. There is less investment in interpersonal relationships, and often, this comes as the child overcome shyness. As nothing is permanent, living in the moment becomes more relevant and easy, but committing to the moment is inadvisable. Patience becomes simpler, waiting less stressful (a side effect of 12 hour car rides).

Friends are easy to make, you discover, because mistakes and little social blunders don't matter as much (everything will be gone and remade anew soon enough). But you never let these new friends come close.

You convince yourself that people don't have to be there to matter, and that while distance changes everything, you still care.

In the abstract.  

You realize you'll never be able to say "Yeah, we've been friends since first grade" or "we grew up together" or "Oh yeah, knew him for years." You decide that time spent together doesn't matter in relationships. (But still know that's a lie.)

You grow more skeptical of people, analytical, aloof.  You don't have the foundation most people do - and when asked "Who are you? Where are you from?" you'd almost like to say "I'm a global citizen," except that sounds pretentious. Say "I'm a stray," and that sounds like the cymbals of a pity parade.

You shrug.

Your defensive techniques are instinctive, your defensive stance subconscious. And when you do realize the walls you've build, they've been painted, wallpapered and have long become a habit - inhabited for too long to be abandoned. This is the one home that will be your constant.

Moving presses the horizons apart, the mind wider. That outsider's understanding of how things work give an advantage and boost to critical thinking. It makes you calmer in facing changes. You won't be the kid crying at high school graduation.

Sometimes I wish this teacher, the silence of a boarded-up house, on everyone. And I say this without malice and without bitterness.

It changes you.