Home is where...

...Your shoes are?
...Your heart is?

Over the weekend I was asked if my new apartment in London was starting to feel like home yet. Its an interesting question, because 'home' is a pretty fluid concept to me. A few weeks ago over lunch with Justin I counted how many times I have moved in my life. Not including two that happened before I can remember, my total is 15. 15 times I have packed up my whole life into a few boxes, and made a home, somewhere new.
Here are the benefits to having grown up like this:
I don't hold sentimental attachment to very many inanimate objects and I don't keep a lot of clutter.
I can pack up my stuff in record time.
I have learned what it takes for a friendship to last through time and distance.
I know the value of my family in ways most people don't ever get to. (More on this later)

Here are the distinct disadvantages:
I believe I have become a person who can't ever feel settled, who always needs to be on the move.
If I can't commit to a place of residence or even a general geographic area, how will I ever be able to commit to a person?
Many (that is to say, most) friendships don't last through the time and distance.
I think I've left little pieces of me behind at every place, and sometimes I feel so fractured that I don't know if I will ever be able to put myself back together.

A few of my friends have had the amazing fortune to have grown up in the same town, some in the same houses, their whole lives. I used to be jealous, wishing I had been granted that kind of life. But now I've learned that in most cases, I am far more adaptable than a lot of people my age, and a lot better at taking care of myself. And in my next entry, when I tell the story that changed the entire path my life was on, it will be a lot easier to understand how I can't really feel anything but gratitude for the way I was brought up, and how I ended up here.

Maybe where 'home' is, isn't really a 'where' question. And maybe the answer doesn't have to be just one place. My new apartment feels a lot more like home since my puppy came to live here. And I think I've done a pretty good job building a home here. At least until the next one, anyway.