Starting Over....

My childhood.  I spent my days playing with toy boats in the gutter, chasing lizards, climbing trees, falling in cactus, catching cicadas, and building forts in the desert.  I was a tom boy and I loved every minute of my childhood.  I loved where we lived.... small town with fun traditions, full of good people.  Life was good for me as a kid, but so many memories I have of my childhood I believe I have suppressed.  Why?  Because I had to leave that place at age 10.  It was a very traumatic thing to experience as a kid, being ripped away from everything you've ever known and taken to a new place far away.   It was too painful to remember, so I pushed those things away. 

I never really realized how much I have suppressed things until lately when a childhood friend found me on Facebook. I had two best friends as a kid.  Jeni, who has remained in contact me with ever since we moved, and Tyler, the kid who always got me in trouble, or at least extremely dirty.  Ha ha.  I hadn't seen or spoken with him since we were kids.  It was shocking to see his request on Facebook.  We started talking about being kids, and the fun things we did and the trauma we put my mother through bringing all sorts of critters in the house.  Ha ha!  My mom loved it though... most of the time.  It's been good to remember, but at the same time, it brings back all the sadness I had when I left.  Even though it's been nearly 30 years, it still hurts.  

Perhaps it's because I keep re-living that hurt.  It wasn't the last time I've had to leave everything and start over.  I've done it 4 times now.  I remember clearly as a kid after moving that I wanted to shut myself up in my room and never come out.  I had a hard time forming new friendships, never wanted to go to school, etc...  I didn't want to form new friendships because I feared I would just have to say 'goodbye' again.  But, years went on and my dad said we were staying put, so life went on.  I made friends, finished school, got married.  I never planned to leave Utah, but staying wasn't in the cards.  We had to move to Michigan to find work and this time we not only had to say goodbye to friends, but family as well.   We made friends pretty quickly in Michigan, but we moved 4 years later and it was heartbreaking.  When we moved to Iowa I vowed not to make any friends.... ever.  It took a good year before I even started to try and form relationships, but when I did, they were the best friends I've had in a very long time.

This last move has by far been the hardest yet, and has stirred up sadness from every prior move, including the one as a kid.  I honestly feel like I've got post traumatic stress disorder.  I also believe that the first move as a kid is what started all my anxiety/panic disorder problems.   We've been here nearly 5 months (feels like 50 years) and we have not one person to talk to.  But, this time, I don't care.  We can't stay here.  We just don't know where we will go.  I am starting to wonder if we will EVER have a place to call 'home'.  I'm starting to think we should just buy a trailer and become gypsies moving from job to job, because that is what we are doing anyway.  It would probably be easier living that way... and much easier to leave since we wouldn't have started putting down roots or anything. 

I'm just tired of not knowing where we are going to end up.  This isn't where we thought we'd be at our age.  This isn't where we 'planned' to be at our age.  It's FAR from it.  It's getting to late to keep starting over...