going away so we can return home

Sometimes I wonder if I came from a lineage of gypsies. I tend to roam a lot. Although my genealogical research doesn't suggest this in any way, I can't help but contemplate why I have so much trouble "settling down". I had no problems getting married and having kids. I didn't baulk at buying a home (several times). However, it always seems that I feel like moving on once we've settled down on one place or another. As a result, we've moved the family around half a dozen times in the last ten years or so.

I generally blame it on my idealistic longing for community and a restlessness at finding perfection, not unlike the numerous Utopian visionaries of the 19th century. So I am always looking to the horizon instead of what is sitting right before my eyes. It's frustrating, and I'm hoping to get through it this time, because I do like where we are living. I just don't like the local politics, or the tourism, or the occasional sweltering humidity in the dead of the summer. Picky, ain't I?

Yesterday, we took a day trip to a larger city that was about two hours ago. We didn't really have any concrete plans, although I had checked out their chamber of commerce website before leaving. I should have printed some maps.

After having lived in small towns for a couple of years now, I still can't believe how frustrating it is to visit larger cities with all of their traffic and road construction. Sometimes I think it would just be a matter of spending time there, and I convince myself that (like the rest of their inhabitants), I will eventually grow accustomed to the layout of the city and know my way around. After all, it took me several years of driving before I attained this sense of direction in Denver. But sometimes I wonder if I haven't actually rewired my approach to life, and if there is no going back. But then, why would I want to?

While we take these little day trips to other cities and towns to see something "different", I am starting to believe that there are times when we are only going away just so that we can return to the comforts of home. Let's just hope that I can someday recognize and accept that I am in fact "home".