Home

There is one question in particular that every military brat HATES to be asked.  I understand no one likes those terrible "ice breaker" questions, but the worst has to be "where are you from."  All together now, sigh.  This is never an easy question, at least not one you can answer without explanation.  It always starts with "I was born in..." and "I just moved here from ".  It's so much fun.
As a military kid Home is a weird four letter word.  Most kids have friends who they grew up with, have lived in the same house most of their lives, and have a very small tight circle of friends.  These ideas are foreign to us.  We never stay anywhere longer than 4 or 5 years, we pick up and start over with very little notice.  Within that time we then start over.  Make new friends, learn a new address, attend a new school and get a new circle of friends that constantly changes, after all even if you just got there odds are your friends are also military brats. 
Nothing in the world wrong with that life.  I loved it, I hated it, I survived it.  We tend to focus on a broader sense of the word home.  After all it can't be a house, those change too often, or even a place.  Home for us is everywhere.  I have friends in numerous states and countries because of the military and we still keep in contact sometimes.  We value the friendships that last past a couple address changes and protect them with crazy determination.  The joke is always Home is where the military sends us.  Ha.
At some point though you hit that magical age where you lose your ID card and your status as an active brat.  You have to make your own choices and grow up.  This is where it got tricky, at least for me.  For the first time in my life I was able to choose where I wanted to go next.  So, I did and stayed in Athens for 8 and a half years earning it the town I have lived in the longest.  My parents PCSed while I was in college so I didn't have my high school home and friends anymore when I visited.  Then I graduated and decided I would make my roots, but as any military brat will tell you, settling down is easier said then done.  I got antsy and was ready for a change.  So, like I had before I picked up everything with very little notice and started over.
At a young age you are taught to adapt and overcome.  It becomes our motto.  Make it work.  But as I sit in my great apartment on a lake in a city that I hate and a job...well, let's just say my heart longs for that sense of home again.  After a bit of soul searching and a lot of crying I have figured out what home really is.  It's where you heart never really leaves.  It doesn't have to be a place, home can be a person.  I went back to Athens yesterday for a visit and though things had changed over the year there were some parts I could just pick up on.  Like someone had hit the pause button and I just fit right back in with it all.  So, no home isn't a tangible thing, but it is something you can hold on to.  That crazy teenager who can drive you nuts but you wouldn't want to be any different, or your best friend who will meet you at crazy restaurants and drive hours to watch movies with you, or even that former boss who buys you lunch to catch up and even that crazy best friend who texts you every day to see how your project is coming.  Home is wherever we want.  So, Macon will never be my home, but it's housing me for now.
Being a military brat is the best experience in the world.  It makes you good at a number of things and it gives you an unquenchable desire for adventure, so to wherever I find home next!