I have lived in Florida my entire life. I have lived in 3 major cities, having made 7 moves from different addresses. The first move of my life was when I was about 4, a year after Hurricane Andrew (that I apparently slept right through) to a house from a condo. It was to the house I grew up in and the house I lived at until I was 21 when I went away to a University. My parents are looking at retiring in about 5 years and want to sell it. I don't like that because it's my home base. I wouldn't really call it home, because home seems to be where I am, but it is the familiar home base that I can go for a long weekend and not have to worry about much of anything. Since I work from "home" I can even take a 4 hour drive to visit and also do work in a refreshing environment. My mom is already trying to load off a room full of boxes to clean out the house. I keep telling her to chill, they have time. It will be weird, the day that I can't call that home base anymore. The day that I won't be able to visit my childhood home will be a sad day. There are a lot of great and not so great memories there, but it's mine. Mine alone. Even though I am not an only child, I'm the only one that was raised there. It holds a special place in my heart. It's also about a 15 minute drive from my most favourite place on the earth. My parents sell that house, I lose all of that connection. The memories live on in my mind, but the chances of me visiting that city again a very small.
The other 6 moves I have made have been in the past 5 years. One a year - after the first year. First was a move to student housing for attending university and since I started 2 years in I didn't have to live in a dorm and I felt that I was mature enough to do so. I was mature enough but there was still a bit of a random factor in there. About 4 months in, we had to move. I had moved in with my long-term boyfriend, his best friend, and his best friends' wife. She hated me. It ended horribly and with little dignity. I got placed in another apartment with a random girl that I had at least gotten the chance to meet face-to-face and text with a few times. She was great. My boyfriend had to move to another apartment. His roommates were cool. We got a third girl shortly after I moved in and she was a horrible roommate. I got that crazy experience under my belt. At the end of the lease, boyfriend and I (the one early blog posts are about) moved in together. That was move #4. That year was great, but after I graduated he broke up with me and I moved closer to my work at Disney (which is no longer a thing). I moved to Orlando. O-Town! That was move #5.
Since I have made at initial move to Orlando, I am now at my third place and we are talking about moving again! Why? Well, we wanted to stay and had decided that we would not move. But there is a lot that has happened in the past year. The maintenance here is so-so and we had bugs again. It wasn't the worst and we did get rid of the bugs again. But what sealed the deal for us was how one of the office staff members treated me. We had gotten served an eviction notice (due to their online system failing) and I called to try fix it but after sounding panicked, she called me an animal and hung up on me. Sadly, the property manager does not seem to care and she is still an employee there. We want to GTFO. But it's okay, because I have about a 60% chance that I will have to move for work when the lease expires, so that helps make the decision EVEN EASIER.
But now, I'm having a bit of a quarter-life crisis. I want to go back to school and am applying to go back to school this week. That's huge. I applied for a job at the home office/headquarters of where I work now. I would be required to move again. But not just somewhere else in Florida - I would have to move to a brand new state, to a place that is a 20 hour drive away from here. It's at least a 3 hour flight. It's 12 states away. It's New Hampshire. I couldn't be more excited and more terrified. "New" boyfriend (the one I have been with for almost 2 years now) would not move with me. Queue anxiety freakout. I've also been given an offer to do similar work, still with the same type of work and technically with the same company, but from an outside source (seriously, this would make so much more sense if you knew what my job was - clearly I'll just have to write another post about it). But, I would get to stay in the Orlando area, we would just have to move to the west side of town so that I would be closer since I could not work from "home" with that job. I do also have the option of renewing my current contract and doing the same job for another year.
But that's why I keep moving. I'm learning how a home, my home, should
be. I am seeing the world through new eyes and I'm learning what
features I do and don't want. I'm learning and seeing how the world
around me works in a different way. I like it, but man is it giving me
gray hairs! Good thing I dyed it purple yesterday.
So now I have a lot of options on my menu, it's just a matter of picking which entree I want and what sides to I pick to go with it? Do I make it a pick 2? Do I just go with the largest plate and say 'screw you, sides!'? I don't know. It's nerve-wracking and a little upsetting. It also doesn't help that I am in a depressive low, currently. It's tough being an adult.
So, until next time--
