Sometime ago I wrote about my desire to have a forever home and the realization that I will not find that home until this life on earth is over.

You can check my story at:

Waiting for My “Forever Home”

Six months ago my husband and I moved to Michigan from Illinois.  We followed our daughter and her family to a small town called St Johns.  Our daughter had accepted the position as pastor of a church in the town and we chose to join them.  We said we would give it a year’s trial and if it did not work out for us, we could move back to Illinois where our son lives or to North Carolina where another daughter lives.  But it has proven already to be a great place to live so we have purchased a condo and will be moving next week to our new home.

According to the popular stats blog, FiveThirtyEight, the average American will move 11.4 times in their lives. This means we can assume 11 homes are lived in over the course of an American’s lives.   I clearly beat that average.  By the time I graduated from high school I had already lived in 12 different houses and in six different towns in Illinois.  With this move I will have lived in 30 different houses in four different states and in two different countries.

And moving around like that has meant my school years were also full of different schools – I was always the “new kid on the block.”

• In six years of grade school I attended five different schools
• In two years of junior high I attended three different schools
• In four years of high school I attended two different schools
• And for college – I attended three community college and three universities.

Sometimes I have felt jealous as I saw people who had lived in the same town all their life – some in the same house they grew up in.  It would be nice, I have thought, to live where you know everyone and have friends from grade school.

But, then I realize I must have gypsy blood because as I think about that – I can’t imagine how boring that must be.  To see the same sights year after year, to never know what is just over that hill or around that corner.

My life may have been a little chaotic at times, but it has never been boring.

Even when we travel we love to just get in our car headed in a general direction and stop whenever we see something that looks interesting.  While moving around and always be the new person means I may not have a multitude of friends wherever I am currently living, I imagine heaven will be great because I already will know so many people I have befriended over the years.

Wandering keeps me interested – and hopefully interesting.

“Not all who wander are lost.”  – J.R.R. Tolkien

“Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but it not what ships are built for.”  – John A Shedd

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” – Robert Frost

So – hopefully this is my last move until the final one to my forever home.

But who knows?

As the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said:

“change is the only constant in life.”