float
Not dead, but lost somewhere in the state between being pleasantly busy and too busy, or thoughtful and preoccupied.

I realized recently that as a result of travel, I've been asked "Where are you from?" a lot more than I normally, even on a state college campus, would hear.

I don't know the answer.

I'm not "from" Oregon. I go to school there. I'm not "from' Washington, that's where my family lives and where I spent two hellish years treading water so as not to drown before I could leave. I'm certainly not "from" Japan. I'm not from Germany, though I lived there one year. I'm not from Utah, though I lived there two. And, the biggest surprise is that I'm not "from" Michigan, even though I lived there nearly eleven cumulative years... not just because I haven't lived there in the last seven years (and MI is therefore an inadequate response), but because I severed myself from there with such certainty that I can only go back when I establish my own term.

My sister, Allie, might be "from" Michigan. Liz is easily "from" Washington. Eleanor is too. My parents would be if they were not too long too lost from any sense of place to know it themselves.

Where am I "from"? Nowhere. I have no home but the temporary locations travel and study afford me, and when I thought this was what I always wanted, realizing that it is what I HAVE has, of course, made me crave the converse. Tokyo was the first "home" I ever had since leaving Michigan seven years ago.

Realizing and accepting that I have no answer to the question "where are you from?" has liberated me from the assumption that I AM my parents home, I AM my boyfriend's apartment, I AM my college campus, I AM my childhood neighborhood, etc. I am none of these things. I am where I am now even if I am not "from" here. I don't have to be "from" anywhere-- it's a bullshit question, not the deep probe I imagined. And my answer explains a lot.

I have no home... but I want one.

Wanderlust without anchor is overrated.

I'm remembering lessons I learned very young (even though I still am) and things that I perhaps already knew. When I had nothing but a desire to travel (or flee?) I was, inside, stagnant and struggling. But now that I am seeking out an anchor, I want nothing more than to move forward, faster, upward, brighter, until I soar at the speed of light.

I don't want to seek Bliss alone anymore but seeking alone is always the easiest road to walk. I think, even in these baby steps beyond, I've found more difficulty in attempting to travel *with* a partner than I ever could have expected.