Childhood

Lately I've been trying to find the words to describe what I'm feeling. I will try my best and see how it goes. This post is about living in a specific place and our notion of belongingness. Having moved to the United States at 13, I felt like I belonged in Greece (and still do). I think there is a certain age in childhood when the world as you know it only makes sense if you are in the place you've grown up in.

Today I was at the park and I was looking at all the children playing baseball, tennis, volleyball, etc. I was trying to put myself in their shoes and see how on earth this place could feel to them like...home. And I couldn't. But when I think about my small town in Greece, my grandmother's backyard where I played for hours with my cousins, my elementary school in Greece and my neighborhood, suddenly that is the only place I could imagine growing up in. And the problem is that I think it's the best place, no matter how many more fun opportunities children have in my current town in the states. One thing that bothers me here is that lots of people move constantly. They move with their children to a different town or state, no matter what age they are, as if life in their current town was just temporary and not good enough. Now, I'm all for traveling and finding the ideal place to live in, but I don't think it's right to move your children away from what they've always known and the people they've grown up with, and to move somewhere else just because of a job opportunity. This thought now reminds me that this is exactly what my parents did when I was 13. I don't hate it here, but I believe that people should try harder to stay at the place they chose and worked hard for. I think there's something very important in being able to visit your parents once you've moved out and to be able to be back in the town you lived in as a child, around the same friends you've had since elementary school and around the same neighbors. Somehow, I think life's cycle is more crystal-clear when your present can meet your past at the same place.

Picture link: http://weheartit.com/entry/11643889