I smile demurely, stir my tea, and glance demeaningly at you before confiding, "ah yes, I wouldn't know anything about such niceties, what with moving from my home country of australia to the united states at the tender age of eight, then nine months later to canada, and again four years later back to the states."
I finish the statement, lower my lashes, and sip my tea awaiting the awkward silence so I can secretly capture it in a small sachet I keep in my pocket and bring it back to the nest to feed my young.
With that out of the way, I feel comfortable letting you all in on this little secret.
Me and my sisters, my family, my type in general?
We LOVE change.
We fucking thrive on that shit.
Back when B and I first got together, about six months after I moved to Virginia to prove my love and whatever, he shared with me his desire to get out of VA and live in the historic brick streets of far away New England.
My response: Give me the go ahead, and I will make it happen in less than a year.
And I did.
Because that's what we do.
Me and my ilk. We can pick up and move out at the drop of a hat. We will sell half our belongings in the time it takes you to pack a suitcase. We will have the couches booked and the car gassed up in the time it takes you to read that We'll Miss You card from work. We take inventory, squirrel away the money, make the calls, and get gone.
What we don't tell you is that the moving when you're young thing crosses your wires in a not so awesome way also.
Grand total from age 0-13, my parents moved me through three countries, six schools, and seven houses.
From age 13-29 I moved myself through two schools, three dorms, nine apartments, two countries, four states, and an eight month, couch hopping, extravaganza, australian renaissance trip.
Still with me?
I have now lived in Massachusetts for four years. Which is the longest time I have ever lived anywhere. Usually the four year mark comes, and something either beyond my control, or incurred purely through psychoses, forces me to pack up and piss off.
Only I am not doing that this year.
I am married, and about to move into a more permanent position at my job, and about to turn thirty. These are...erm...root putting down type events. Also, I have lived in my current apartment for two years in two weeks, and that's the longest I've gone without even moving (within the same telephonic area code) in about ten years.
Needless to say, I am freaking the fuck out.
Daily I go through the colors of cabin fever. I want to cut all my hair off, or dye it all purple, or both. I want a tattoo, a huge one, maybe of a bat or a boat or a map or something. I want to move, travel, go back to school, quit my job and teach english overseas, sell myself into serfdom, etc. You get the picture.
Around me the world I have grown accustomed to is changing dramatically. People who are dear to me are losing loved ones in droves, others are having their first (or second) babies, they're buying houses, getting divorces, starting new jobs in foreign climes or setting out on exciting frontiers as small business owners.
Often, as a woman, I feel like after marriage, the only big life changing event left for me is to have a baby, and I'm not ready for that quite yet.
Or divorce.
And I'm not interested in that. At all (and hopefully B isn't either).
And now with the big THIRTY coming for me like John Cusack in a suit, I feel more than ever I'm supposed to settle in and get comfortable with my life. Find my balance, my routine, that stability I've never had.
I look around and I think, I could do this every day for the next ten years and wake up about to turn forty still living in an apartment, still working (rather than writing), and wondering if I missed something.
But what if I'm missing it right now?
I keep preaching that the big changes in life are predicated by the little ones you make every day, but that's just because that's what I hope is true.
In my experience the big changes are always awful. They happen when you're closest to getting something you've worked really hard for and want really badly, and then they usually involve you not getting that thing and gumming up your entire life for a few years, thusly not allowing you the chance to realize you're losing time, and ground, and chances.
These are the voices that get the best of me late at night, when it seems like it would be so easy to sell the cat and buy a plane ticket. Craigslist, man. It's amazing.
But I can't help feeling like this might be my lesson. For once, I need to be the eye of the hurricane, rather than the broken rocking chair swirling around waiting for fate to plunk me somewhere. I hold friends while they weep, I cheer on family while they make leaps toward their goals, I encourage B to follow his dreams, and I try not to go mad while making time for my own.
Deep down, I know this year is meant to change everyone. For better or worse.
Perhaps my change will be to recognize that roots aren't the scariest thing that can happen to a person.
Then again, maybe I'll be a fruit picker in Fiji by 2013.
