I've often found myself feeling jealous towards people who have grown up in the same town their whole life. I envied their consistent lifestyle and comfortability. Throughout my life, I've lived in five different cities, Columbia, SC; Sumter, SC; Goose Creek, SC; Richmond Hill, GA; and James Island, SC. I've gone to one elementary school, two middle schools, and three different high schools. However, even with all of the negatives of moving that I can think up, there are three reasons that it has made a positive impact on my life.
1. Learning Culture
I know what you're thinking, "You've never left the South. How could you know more than one culture?" Despite only moving within my home state, I've met vastly different types of people. In Sumter, everything revolved around the country lifestyle of camouflage, fishing, and churchgoing. In the Charleston area, I was and am continuing to be exposed to vastly different people around every corner. There are hipsters, hippies, preps, surfer dudes, and even people like those from Sumter. Basically, from the foothills, to the Sandhills, to the coast, South Carolina is filled with different kinds of people from different walks of life.
2. Lifetime Friends
Most of my friends don't live down the road from me. They live somewhere between two to five hours away. I've made many road trips. I've put a lot of miles on my car going to different parts of the state or the state next door. I've slept on a lot of couches and blow-up mattresses. But, the distance doesn't mean that I'm any less close to these friends.
3. What Hometown?
Whenever people ask me where I'm from, I am never sure what to say. Do I tell them where I lived the longest? Where all of my family lives? Where I live right now? I don't necessarily have a city or town to claim as my own.
I will continue to move across the country as I go to college, vet school, and so forth. I know that all of these different experiences will only make me a better person. My life has been anything but boring up to this point and I don't expect it to settle anytime soon.
