Where, what or who is HOME?

I have moved almost nine times in my lifetime. I have been to four different high schools in three different countries. As a result, I am often asked the oh so dreaded question: "Where are you from?". Where am I from? is the question I ask myself all the time and it is one I don't really know how to answer.  I have moved so much I haven't really considered any specific place to be where I am from. I usually answer, "well the last place I lived was..."

I consider each place I live to be very much a part of me. I feel like I have many different "selves". My Park City self, my Montreal self, my London self, and the list goes on with every place I have lived. With moving so much, it is difficult to find who I really am. But is it wrong to have so many different selves? Is it wrong to be defined by different selves? I have had a great life. I can't complain, I have an incredible family who I am very close with, I have lived in some amazing places and have met great friends. I mean look at me; I am living in London, England!!! I have never regretted having to move so much. Everywhere I have lived has provided me with different experiences that have shaped who I am today.

I consider myself a very adaptable person and maybe that is why I haven't minded moving so much. I also made to most of my experiences, I chose to enjoy myself. But there are those times where I feel foreign wherever I go. I consider my "home" the place I am living at that moment, but I also consider Utah a kind of "home" because that is where most of my family lives and it is the last place I lived. In the middle of my freshman year, I left Park City and moved to Montreal, Quebec. After two years living there, I returned to Park City for my Junior year. I have to admit, that was probably the hardest move I have experienced. It was extremely difficult to feel so foreign around all of these people I was familiar with and was supposed to be friends with. I have discovered that after having the experiences I have had, I am used to moving around, living in a city, and being surrounded by diversity. I didn't fit in anymore in the place I called my "home".

This is one way I really relate to Jasmine. She moved a lot in her time in America and from what I gathered, she felt foreign, like she didn't belong. When she was living with the Indian family in New York, she didn't fit in with them either. I think she was hoping that they would immediately accept her and that she would feel at home. At least that is what I felt like when I was moving back to Park City, but that is not what happened to me or her.

Also like Jasmine, I have discovered where I am happiest and what I consider my "home". I consider my "home" to be wherever my family is. I think Jasmine comes to think of her "home" as being with Taylor and Duff. I have come to a conclusion that it is the people in our lives that we love that make it "home", not the places we go. So it doesn't matter how many selves you have, because every time I move, I change and add a new part to my self, but I always have the ones I love.