When I think back on my childhood, one of the things that always comes to mind first is the fact that my formative years were dominated by so much travel, and so much moving around.
From time to time, I have alluded to the fact that I had actually lived in more than a dozen countries on three continents by the time I was 21. It's not a statement I make to try to impress anybody, it's simply an accurate reflection of my life as it existed, up until that point.
Even though we were not military, my dad's job did take him all over the place. Or, rather, he allowed his job to take him all over the place by "volunteering" to go and do for overseas clients on behalf of the factory where he worked.
Because he was, more or less, "the crazy inventor dude," they were quite happy to let him go because usually he would come up with something on the travels that would benefit both the clients he went to see, as well as the company itself.
It was definitely not the kind of lifestyle that most kids grow up with, and I spent an awful lot of years feeling like I had missed out on both childhood and my chance to be a regular teenager because... well... we were always all over the place and I really didn't have time to make friends. In some ways, it felt like my parents had "stolen" my childhood from me, by merit of their lifestyle.
Many years later, after much counseling and self-reflection, I came to understand that nothing had actually been stolen from me and in some ways I'd been given a lot... what I had experienced was merely different but not wrong.
Now that I am older, I spend more time reflecting on those early days of my life and thinking about how they informed my subsequent life.
As humans, I guess we often discover that there are different ways we can go with the experiences we have. One thing I can definitely attribute to my childhood - and to all our moving around - is that as an adult I have never felt the seemingly magnetic draw to "go traveling around the world" that most people seem to express.
In a sense, my adult life is a reflection of something my auntie once said to me when I was about 15 or 16. She was commenting on our return from yet another trip to somewhere and she looked at me very sincerely, with a bit of worry in her eyes, and said "I'm concerned that your soul is not able to keep up with your body!"
I never forgot those words, and I often found myself thinking about them when I would find myself some 20 years later sitting there, listening to people who are just longing to go gallivanting all over the place and I think to myself "the only thing I want to do is just stay right here, tend to a garden and have a couple of cats and not move!"
Depending on your perspective, I suppose you could argue that I had too much of a good thing when I was a kid. And it burned me out a little bit.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy going somewhere on vacation perhaps as much as the next person, but the whole idea of taking an exotic trip to visit a bunch of countries all over the place holds pretty much zero appeal to me at this point.
I sometimes find myself sitting and reflecting on whether I even have any favorite places among the many we lived.
I did really enjoy our house in the south of France where we would stay at the same place a number of times. When we were there I was mostly fairly young - between maybe five, and I think the last time we went I was perhaps 12.
Perhaps I think fondly of it because it was during a period in my life when I was learning a lot of things, and I was open to absorbing a lot of things from my surroundings. It's when I got really interested in beachcombing, and it's when I got really interested and truly looking at nature.
Even so, these days I am grateful to have a permanent base to call home.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!
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Created at 2024-02-03 01:04 PST
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For the longest time I thought I wanted to travel the world and move from country to country “experiencing” things, but then I found myself in India reading a book on a rooftop with and not really wanting to do anything else, and I thought, Did I really come all the way to India just to read a book? I could be doing this at home. Ever since then, much like you said, the appeal of traveling has lost its luster. If I hadn’t have done it though, I don’t think I’d be able to say that. Also, possibly similar to you, I had to come to another country in order to plant roots and feeling comfortable with living a “regular” life.
Well, it seems you found "your spot" in Japan... I found mine in the US Pacific Northwest, many thousands of miles from Denmark. Ironically, this part of the US is much "like Denmark, only with a better view," because there are mountains here. Evidently, I'm not alone. The Puget Sound region has the greatest concentration of Scandinavians in the US, other than Minnesota.
That’s interesting. I wonder what the original impetus was that pulled a group of Scandinavian to that area was (if there was one).
I feel the same way about the city I live in. It is much like my hometown, but better because of the mountains.
Irony is children moving like this when young normally do not enjoy it, making new friends, schools, always feeling like a stranger, those in stable homes long to move.
There comes a time one reflects, somewhere quiet with a garden then no place can beat home, plus a holiday when the mood takes you!
!LUV
!WINEX
It is ironic that we often long for what we didn't have in early life. The lack of stability and sense of pervasive unrest always made me fee very anxious.
I really like having put down roots here.
We were fortunate living in one home settled throughout, holidays away at the coast annually traveling by train.
For the most part, I am happy to stay here on the farm with my cat. When I was much younger I wanted to travel and stay in different places long enough to really understand the way of life there. But that was never to be….