Vines
Defining home when you’ve grown up in different places
By Molly Workman
On March 20, 2006, my dad came home with flowers for my mom. He’d done this every Friday since they got married in 1996. When my dad did this we called them, “friday flowers.” But there was something different this week. He brought flowers for me too. My dad had “the look” on his face I knew all too well. It was the “we got orders” face. What this meant was the military assigned my dad, and the rest of my family, a new duty station. This meant about a month or so later, cardboard boxes and a moving truck would show up at our house to box up and take everything we owned to a new location.
Those “friday flowers” were to soften the blow of another major move. This time it was Belgium. I was nine, living in Hawaii and had already moved six times before. I had just started to find my groove, made good friends to play with in the neighborhood, just got my sailing certification and, did I mention, I was living in Hawaii. This move accompanied an eleven-hour time change, having to learn a new language and being farther away from my extended family. Even though my family had relocated so many times, this move felt more overwhelming than ever before.
I don’t know why having roots is so important to me. I suppose it’s because the grass is always greener on the other side. I’ve always marveled at the idea of knowing someone since elementary school, or how my partner can show me parts of a neighborhood he grew up in. In my head, having that sense of belonging seems like a fundamental part of who someone is, which leaves me lost when I am lacking that sense of “home.”
My mom joined the military when she was 19. She was sent to Saudi Arabia and then to Mountain Home, Idaho, where she met my dad. He was a higher-ranking officer and she was enlisted, so they had to date in secret. My mom’s contract ended and in 1996, they got married, and a year later, in 1997, I was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
I remember parts of my childhood by where we were living at the time. In Mississippi, when I was six, our backyard felt like Disneyland with a pool and jungle gym. In Ohio, when I was eight, I spent every second I could training with my cheer team. In Belgium, when I was twelve, it was vacation after vacation. In Germany, I spent my sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth birthdays at Oktoberfest and holidays at the Christmas markets.
Looking back, it would have been nice to live close to my extended family. We always spent holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with just the four of us — my mom, dad, brother and I. It was just too expensive to travel to see family for such a short time.
My immediate family became my everything. We spent every dinner together. Whether it was baseball games for my brother James or volleyball games for me, we spent always Saturdays together. There were times we were all each other had in a country where we knew no one. We had to be close. When one of us had to leave, our dynamic felt off. When I was nine, my dad left to go to Iraq and my heart broke. I screamed for him not to go. My mom still tears up thinking about it. When he came back after almost a year, reintegrating him back into our daily lives and new routines was a painful process.
When I was fifteen, my brother left for college, and things at home never felt the same. For months, I accidently grabbed four plates and napkins when I set the table for dinner. It stung each time I had to put one back.
When I was sixteen, my mom was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. She made it to every dinner and game she could, but her treatment was aggressive. She finished chemo just in time for me to leave for college, and we celebrated her official remission status on Jan. 7, 2019. As a family, we did the best we could to keep things the same when everything around us changed so often.
Change is difficult, but adapting to it is second nature to me now. All those transitions gave me life experiences people dream about and important lessons. I’ve found roots can’t define me but vines can. I may not have thick, unyielding roots in one place, but I do have boundless vines. My vines are every place I have lived. They are all 14 houses I temporarily called home, they are each person I have ever been lucky enough to meet, they are the resiliency I have built to overcome and adapt to change. Although I may need clarification if you ask me where I’m from, I wouldn’t trade the way I grew up for anything.