Palm trees, moss, and roots

I used to think I was a walking palm, a tree that grows in Costa Rica. Whenever something in the dense canopy blocks out its light or larger tree falls and knocks it down, the tree just moves over. As it moves, it stops using its old roots and tries to grow new ones in a new found ray of sunlight. They old roots are still attached to it but they whither and sometimes break as the tree moves farther away.

In the summer of 2012 I fell in love with a man about to go into the US Air Force. We've been doing long distance ever since. In the spring of 2013 I went to live in Costa Rica for four months. For the summer of 2013 I lived in L.A. for an internship. In fall 2013 I was back at Whitworth in Spokane. January-March 2014 I've been living in Olympia for another internship.

Since that fateful summer before my junior year, I have made 27 trips in this hemisphere, resided in 5 cities, 3 states, and two different countries. I have visited 4 additional cities in 3 countries including a legal visit to Cuba.

I am worn out because people need roots.

When I graduated high school roots were a burden. I wanted new adventures in distant places. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to meet new people. I wanted new stories. Ultimately, I wanted a place to grow into my own person. I had been knocked down to the forest floor, and over shadowed by bigger trees so I grew toward a new bean of sunlight.  So I uprooted and moved to Washington.

Two years later I decided it was time to up root again, then again, and again, and again. It has certainly left me feeling accomplished. Indeed I have had more experiences in the last year than most people have the joy of experiencing in their lifetime. However, my constant re-rooting has left me a weak and worn out tree.  In search of better sunlight I kept neglecting the essential nutrients I needed to make that sunlight beneficial. Far away from the support of my family, high school and college friends, and my favorite person in the world my boyfriend, all the sunlight in the world wouldn’t do this tree much good.

That just isn't a sustainable way to live.

I love all the friends I have made on these adventures. I have met some wonderful and challenging people along the way, even some kindred spirits. I have met people from so many cultures and backgrounds and life styles; and those people have helped shape me. I see the world through new eyes and I'm so grateful!

But now I'm tired of making new friends. I’m tired of packing up everything I own every 2-4 months. I want and I NEED to put down roots. After all, roots are what nourish us.

Living all over has been fun. Yet it has left me feeling like a little piece of Pacific Northwest moss desperately clinging to an old stone wall, one kick and I'll come loose. I’m renouncing the life strategy I once thought would make me a sturdy tree but left me in my current moss like condition.  People are meant to put down roots, to be stable. Sometimes life circumstances rip these roots right up and leave us hanging in the air screaming like a one of Professor Sprout's mandrakes. But like any real or magical plant, we need to be firmly planted for a number of healthy years. I am not a walking palm. If anything I’d say I want to be an aspen. Aspens are networking trees. If you stand in an aspen grove in the Rockies it is probable that every tree you see is connected to all the rest. Like them we weren’t meant to stand alone. 

So I'm leaving Washington. I’m going home. At home there is an unsightly, if not completely hideous, pot awaiting me.  It has pink walls, a purple bedspread, lime curtains, and a hand full of fairies. In this pot I grew through my awkward lanky years, through my teenage angst, through heartbreaks and triumphs. There is good soil in this unsightly pot. No, middle school was not kind to my bedroom, but it is mine and it is home. If I need change I'll cover up the pink walls, get some mature art, take a class, or invest more time in my hobbies. But one thing is for sure – of all the things I want out of life, I just want to put down some roots with my man.