Originally published on Unwritten by Allie Braun.
I never understood my friend's desires to live in one place the rest of their lives. They would say things like "I just want to marry someone from college and then move back home and raise my kids in the same town that I grew up in." And while there is nothing wrong with wanting that, for me, it has always been the complete opposite. I don't want to move back home in the future because I don't want to go back and live the same life again (even though it was a good one).
I moved around a lot as a kid. Sometimes moving seemed heart breaking, because I thought we would live there forever and always. The first time we moved, I was in second grade and I was forced to leave my best friends, along with really the only home I had ever really known at that point. We were packing up, and heading to a whole new state. I had romanticized ideas that one-day I would go back to my old house and that life I had there when I was old enough to live on my own. Naturally, that subsided and I moved on with my young life. By the time I moved again, I was old enough to fully understand the concept of moving and was pretty excited because I was in love with the new house.
My last move, to date was to college. Of course my family didn't come this time- it was just me. Like, really just me. The only people I knew at my college were the people who Facebook messaged me the summer before freshman year.
I was scared out of my mind.
I spent the morning before move in day crying in a hotel room with my mom. But believe it or not, I fell head over heels in love with my school by the end of the first month. I feel like every time I moved, marked a start of a new life for me. Each new destination helped me grow and figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. And now I think change is just another part of life, we all have to learn to embrace the possibilities that it brings.
I want to move to New York City and try to flourish on my own in the city of dreams. One day I'll be doing whatever the heck I want, parading around somewhere like Paris and stumbling over my broken French everyday. I want to live somewhere where I can see the ocean, or somewhere where it snows so much that I get snowed in and the only thing to be done that day is sit by a fire and drink tea.
The thing is, I want to live all of these different lives and let each destination piece together my identity. I don't want a forever home and I don't always want to be in the same place living the same life for the rest of my life because I know that I don't have to. The fact that we have the ability to just change our lives is amazing to me, and I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to take advantage of that.
It's like I have A wanderlust for life itself.
I want to be able to continue to change and continue to grow. I want to be able to embrace the unpredictable that we call life and not ever have to say the words forever. I'm just a girl whose never felt the desire for a forever and always.