Day 364 - Numbers of My Life

Thirteen different addresses before I turned seven years old - and, no, we weren't in the military. That's always the first question people ask, so let's get right to the point and say that's just way too fucking much, even if we were in the military. Don't be an idiot.

Just in case you think I'm being a little ridiculous by jumping right to profanity and insults, let me remind you that this is my story and I'll tell it however the fuck I feel it...and sometimes this is how I feel.

In the the two years before I was born, my parents had:

• Married
• Moved three times already
• Lost their first baby and
• Left their childhood religion

These are major life stressors. Major. 

Then I am born and when I was only three months old, my parents moved again...this time from Ohio to Arizona. And did I mention they took off without a job lined up or a place to live and only $700 in their pocket. I asked my mom if this was normal, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, considering the fact that they didn't have the Internet then to prearrange such things, but she said, no, that people were horrified by their plan.

Ok, so one crazy move. What's the big deal about that?? And you were only three months old. Seriously, how much do you think it really affected you?

That one move? Not much, probably. But let me continue.

This is actually harder to explain than you may realize.

A detailed chronological timeline may give you all the facts, but that will be boring. Besides that, you will undoubtedly be overwhelmed by the onslaught of times and dates and ages and addresses and jobs jumbled up with the whys and wherefores. If I try to break it down to a bullet list of mere numbers and categories, the effect may be so out of context from the story that I am likely to lose you anyway.  

It would not be dissimilar to reading the Book of Numbers...and even most of us who "get" the Bible skip that part. There is no abridged version that any of us really want to read. 

But these numbers of my life are important too. And it is especially important to me that you are able to fully absorb the impact of this experience in my life. Moving as much as we did was a major life-force that shaped me before I ever realized what was happening.  Even today, I still suspect that I simply cannot comprehend how much moving has made me who I am today, for better or for worse.  

So here’s my plan:  I’m going to do a little of both.  I will give you some basic visuals and facts, but I will also tell the details within the story. 

First, I’m going to show you a map – of just the first seven years.  Then I’m going to give you an outline of basic details about those moves that occurred - in only my first seven years of life.   If you get lost or frustrated or dazed and confused, feel free to skip ahead.  I’ll probably be repeating a lot of the details later just to remind you again of what ties together.  However, be warned that this is only the first seven years, and if you get lost here, well, good fucking luck on the other 10 years of my childhood.

Here goes...

Got that?  

Let that sink in for a minute.

Ok, now to add some details.  

Follow along with the map, if you dare.

• 12 moves in seven years
• 8 cross-country moves in seven years
• 6 cross-country moves by the time I was four years old.
• Both times we moved cross-country to Arizona, we did so with no job and no house waiting for us.
• Delbert always preferred the west and after leaving the Mennonite church, he never wanted to live close to family again.  Even so, every time he couldn’t find work, hi-ho it was back to family we would go.
• We returned to Ohio four times and the fourth time was the third time (stay with me here) we moved cross-country without a job or house waiting.  We lived with Grandpa Hartmans for 3 weeks and then Grandpa Hiltys for 1 ½ weeks before we found a job and a place to live.  If you count this period of “homelessness,” we moved 14 times in those seven years.
• Only three of the 12 moves were unrelated to family or religion and all three of those were the “homeless/jobless” moves.
• Our 12th place of residence was the first place we ever stayed for longer than one year.  We were actually there for just shy of TWO years!

Granted, my parents were young – very young – when they got married, started a family, and set off with little trepidation.  Not only that, but I realize that they were following the urges and promptings of their own stories which began long before mine.  I can’t tell their story; I can only tell mine.  So, as a caveat, please know that I’m not blaming my parents or anyone else for how their choices may have impacted me.  I’m merely telling you how I experienced those choices and what I think about how those choices shaped me.

Truthfully, I never resented moving around as a child.  Most of the time, I looked forward to each new move as a grand adventure and each new place as another curious corner of the world to explore.  And there are quite a few valuable life skills and experiences that I gained from my nomadic childhood.  

Take these, for example:

• Adaptable and Flexible

       As the Darwinists like to say, “Adapt or die!” and this is especially true               when you are constantly on the move.  Constant moving, if nothing else, 

       means constant change and you have to learn to be flexible and adapt to 

       whatever or whomever you meet along the way. In fact, I’m so 

       good at it that I have often referred to myself as a chameleon.

• Resourcefulness and Ingenuity
  You may not always have the traditional solution to a problem, so you have to learn to be inventive and think outside of the box.  You had cupboard doors on the kitchen cabinets in the last house, but suddenly you’re living in a dilapidated shack with barely a kitchen at all?  Stitch together some scraps of fabric and hang curtains in place of your cupboard doors.  

         (true story)

• Efficiency and Necessity
  Move enough times and you will quickly become a Tetris champion.  You will be able to eyeball a box and know that it will fit perfectly in that seemingly insignificant and tiny crevice of the moving truck.  Also, you realize that you don’t need as much stuff as you think you do. You become conditioned to select your possessions based on how willing you are to move it.

• Creativity and Initiative
  Remember the dilapidated shack I just mentioned?  That place didn’t have a functional kitchen or even running water, but my dad knew that he could fix it and that it would be a really cheap place for us to live.  So he negotiated with the landlords and that was the first place we stayed longer than one year.  The family who owned the house loved how Delbert and Mom took care of the place and they became close friends.

• Vulnerability and Trust
  When you move you are starting everything over again – community, school, friends, resources – and you quickly realize that the only way to re-establish yourself (before the next move) is if you simply ask upfront for what you need to know or find.  You have to be brave enough to face your need for help and also be able to trust that there are people in the community who are willing to help you even if they barely know you.  

• Hopefulness and Courage
  And swirled throughout every decision to move is the hope that you are going somewhere better and the courage to act on that hope with no guarantee that it is true.  I lived and died for that hope and courage...

On the other hand, there are definite disadvantages to moving around so much, but I didn’t realize these until I was much older and by then it was too late.  The patterns created by my childhood were already well formed and it would be a painful process over many, many years to learn how to respond to life and relationships as someone who stays, not just as someone who always leaves or perpetually arrives as the outsider. There was one time during my childhood that I can remember being upset about the prospect of moving again, but that was when I was 12 years old and, well, it was about a boy...