My heart echoes the pounding of my sneakers against the pavement. The same wind blowing through the Grove’s magnolia trees sends my cotton-candy curls streaming behind me. In the distance, houses emblazoned with Greek letters stand waiting. The Mississippi sun shines down on a sea of girls, their cries of joy and surprise swelling into a song that breaks the silence of this Sunday afternoon. It’s Bid Day.
Despite my eighteen short years, I consider myself an expert in the practice of moving, well versed in the illusion of permanence and the art of starting over. I can make a four-course meal in a gas station, stay sane in a car for hours on end, and stack boxes in a U-HAUL with the skill of a Tetris master.
I suppose I can attribute this success to my parents. In the twenty-five years since they were married, my mother has moved fourteen separate times, between eight states and two continents. The life of a military family is not kind to stability or complacency. But even after my father retired from the Army, we still jumped from place to place. Whether due to boarding schools, bad luck, or a myriad of other reasons, I have not lived in the same place for more than five years.
Whatever the reason, the result is still the same, and the tasks in between far more familiar than I would like them to be. After the decision is made, there is no escape from the two weeks of mass chaos. Of cats playing with rolls of bubble wrap and frantic searching for the packing tape. Of finding things you haven’t seen since the last move and wondering if everything will make it this time. Asking where the spoons went and memorizing a new address.
Two weeks of sitting on my bedroom floor, boxes piled around me like the stone bricks of a castle, wondering how we’ve ended up here again. This time. I’d think. This is the last time. But in my heart, I know it isn’t true. Change is inevitable. It hurts in the moment but always leads to something greater, like a broken bone that grows back stronger.
Despite my years of training, moving to college was an entirely new experience for me. I was moving of my own free will; I was choosing to leave behind everything that was familiar and safe to seek out the unknown, the impossible. Now, with a semester under my belt, my dorm room feels familiar and safe, but it’s not truly a home to me. Many places are familiar and safe: my grandparent’s house, my summer camp, my school, my church, my city. But these places are not home either.
I can’t tell you when I redefined home. When you’ve moved as many times as I have, you never attach yourself to any one place, because you know it’s only a matter of time before you’re pulled away again. I don’t think of home as a place anymore because I know how fleeting those places are. Places, like people, ideas, and opinions, change over time. I think my home has never been the same place, simply because I am never the same person when I return there.
To me, home is a feeling. It’s the feeling of acceptance, of being welcomed and loved as you are. Home is people. It’s my family, our traditions, it’s the way my coon hound always runs to the door to meet me. My home has never been four walls and a roof, and that is why it is so special to me. If my home isn’t a place, then I never really leave.
When I ran on Bid Day, I didn’t run towards a house. I didn’t run to letters, socials, or a reputation. I ran towards people, to my future big sister and best friends. I ran to a network of support and encouragement for all who wear the kite with pride. My decision to move towards Greek life wasn’t an easy one, but on that October morning I had the chance to join a community, to leave behind the familiar and safe in order to find something greater. On Bid Day, I ran home and never looked back.
