Realizing You're Not From Anywhere

“Where are you from?” It’s one of the most rudimentary, typical questions in the world, one that most people answer without having to think twice about it. However, as a military teen, it's never been that simple, because the truth is that I’m not really from anywhere. 

Most people have a hometown, somewhere that they can claim as their own, a place where they and their family have lived for many years. But my answer has never been definite. Do I say where I was born? Where I just moved from? My favorite move? Where I lived the longest? This question always stumps me (and many other military teens) when asked, and I remember the exact moment it hit me. It was the first day of 8th grade, I had just moved to a new state, and I was trying to introduce myself to others in my class. Then, there was that question with an overly complicated answer they definitely didn’t expect.

 “Where are you from?” 

I suddenly felt quietly different, realizing that no matter how many places I’ve lived and people I’ve met, I didn’t have a place to call mine. I ended up giving the easiest answer: Arkansas, where I had just moved from. But it didn’t feel right.

The truth is, most military teens don’t have hometowns; we have timelines and stations that mark our lives, and we flip through these different places like chapters in a book. For a while, I was jealous of people with roots—people who had the same friends since elementary school, family in town, and a total sense of belonging that they didn’t have to fight for. They had a continuity I could only dream of having. I didn’t have roots like them. Instead, I’m from packing up my life in cardboard boxes every couple of years. I’m from new schools, new friends, and the process of trying to integrate yourself in an environment that doesn’t always welcome you. 

At first, I hated moving. Though I was excited to see a new place, I always hated the idea that I’d have to eventually leave and go through the process again. And yet, after all of the time I spent loathing moving, I realized something important. Being not from anywhere doesn’t mean that I am from nowhere and don’t have a place; it means I am from everywhere.

Every place I have lived has shaped me, introduced me to people, taught me lessons, and stayed within me. I carry memories of sleepovers with friends, laughter in classes, and all the homes I have left. I’ve learned how to navigate unfamiliar places, how to start over, and how to love every place. 

By being a military teen, I’ve learned that home isn’t a single place. Home is a collection of memories, people, and experiences that stick with us. Home is the friends who still stay in contact after moving away. Home is the countless communities made, even if they were temporary. Home is knowing that even if you don’t have continual roots in one place, you have roots in yourself and those who care for you. 

So when people ask me now, “Where are you from?”, I don’t answer with the “safest” option; I answer with the many places that I’ve gotten to live in. I’m not from anywhere, I’m from everywhere.