A missionary family I know just moved back to my local area, and I’m excited to reconnect with them. I absolutely love hanging out with their 3 kids and am looking forward to “babysitting” sometimes. (They might argue they’re too old to be “babysat,” but would gladly “hang out.”)
When a mutual friend of ours told me they’re back, I said, “I’m really curious how the kids are going to adjust from moving around a lot to being more rooted here.” I also spent a lot of my childhood moving around and now, as an adult, I long to be rooted. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life wondering where and when I’ll ever feel like I’m home.
My friend, who’s one of my older mentors and also spent some time moving around as a missionary, said, “It’s actually not as hard of an adjustment if you’ve had constant people in your life, like your family, doing life with you. You know as well as I do that home is not just a place, it’s people. It’s having your people with you.”
She’s right. The only way I felt at home in the most miserable, bone-dry desert of El Paso, Texas was through having my mom, sister, and a solid church community who weathered the most awful storms of life with me. And in contrast, I spent 3 months living in Oregon–one of the most beautiful states where I met some interesting people–but was deeply depressed after the first month because I didn’t have anyone around from home who REALLY knew me. I don’t regret it, but I don’t think I’d ever do it again. Meeting people while traveling is fun, but none of those I’ve met will ever be my constant, ride-or-die, safe people with whom I can fully be myself. That level of relationship takes rootedness and consistent cultivation over several years.
The real reason I did YWAM and left for Oregon was because I felt like I wasn’t accepted at home, that I was too weird and different. I thought I had to start over somewhere new, where no one knows me, so I could reinvent myself. I thought I was going to establish my adult life in Oregon. But what I learned the painful, hard way was that who I am at home is also who I’m going to be somewhere else. Not only do the problems from home have this way of following you around, but being somewhere new actually makes them worse. I was weirder and more different to people in Oregon because they had no context for why I am the way I am. It didn’t click until years later that we had unspoken cultural differences.
When I got back home to PA, the last thing I expected was to feel more at home here than I ever had before… but I did. To my surprise, my friends all understood that I had been through something life-changing (in both good and bad ways), and they wanted to come alongside me to help me process those changes. I had been looking for “my people” across the country, and across the world, but it turns out, I found them by coming back to right where I started.
I still love to travel because it inspires me. I enjoy sensory, cross-cultural experiences overseas–the sounds, food, and ways of life. But my least favorite travels were the ones I did solo (like Oregon). I even spent a weekend in Delaware by myself several months ago, and I didn’t like it as much as I hoped. I’ve always come home from those thinking, “That would’ve been more fun with a friend.”
As an experienced traveler, I’ll say the most fun you’ll have traveling–especially while doing longer-term cross-cultural experiences, or even a whole move–is with someone from home who knows you. That way you have someone to process the experience with (especially the inevitable trauma of culture shock), to keep you from getting lost, and to keep you from losing yourself.
As for my missionary friends, I’ve always admired how well-adjusted their kids are no matter where they’re living. But maybe it’s because, while they may have moved houses and countries several times, they have never left home.
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