Home

With short-term teams coming and going so often here (25 so far since I've been here), I'm often asked where I am from. FOr me that is a difficult question and I have a hard time answering it quickly.

I've been living in this house in Tactic for 13 months now (after more than 5 months in the guest house). That's pretty average really. I feel as though I should be moving to a new house or town or province or country right about now.

Before I turned 30, I had lived in 29 different houses in 19 different towns in 5 provinces and 3 different countries.



The longest stretch I lived anywhere was in this house, where I was born (though I lived in 6 other houses before the 4 1/2 years I lived here in the early 80's). My father built this house in 1975 and then built an addition in the 80's. The house burned down in December, 1983. This event spurred a long string of moves accross the country and then the world. I often wonder what my life would have been like if it had not have burned down; if I had finished growing up in the woods of New Brunswick.

The second longest stretch was 4 years in College Heights (now incorporated into Lacombe, AB) while I finished my BEd and BA. In total I lived 8 years in College Heights, though in 3 different houses for 3 different spells.

It is interesting that the three places where I spent the most time (18.5 years in total) - West Branch, NB, College Heights, AB, and Grand Sault, NB - are not places that I would call home. When I visit them, I feel like a ghost and the memories of these places don't seem true, they are simply facts.

Oddly though, places where I lived only a few months or a couple years do feel like home (4.5 years total) - Cormier Village, NB, Red Deer, AB, Edmonton, AB, Montreal, QC. The difference is that family lives there.

Where I come from is quite difficult to define. Home is actually pretty easy to define. Now, it's wherever Amber is cooking.