"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home"

"There's no place like home", and "home is where the heart it" are 2 phrases that have always stuck with me, and always been intriguing to me. Moving around a lot meant that home was a versatile place - it could be anywhere! As a family, we've lived in 6 different US states, and 3 countries outside the US; when I was 10, and we moved from Chile to Mexico, my parents bought us a movie called, "Let's Get a Move On" about families who move, but home is where your family is.

My senior year of high school, I student directed a play called "70 Girls, 70" - a play about a bunch of senior citizens who are bored with the lives, so they go and steal fur coats; luckily, that's not the message that I have taken away from that play :) One of the songs in the play is called, "Home is where the heart is" and it says just that - home isn't really a house, or any one specific place, but home is where your heart it.

But what does that mean? My family lives in Seattle, I live in Provo, I have people that I love in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, and in too many states across the US to name...so is home all of those places for me? I dont' know.

When people ask me where I'm from, I politely and discreetly try to side step that question by saying, "Oh, my parents live in Seattle"; most people don't catch the side stepping going on, but some do. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago, out of all the places I've lived, where do I really consider "home" to be, I probably would have said South Florida, because that's where I spent most of high school, that's where I had my first boyfriend, I learned to drive there, it was the 1st state we lived in back in the US.

Last week, though, we went on a family vacation back to So. Florida - we visited our favorite restaurant down there, we went and saw the street and neighborhood we used to live on, we walked around the high school that I had gone to, and we went to the ward that we attended where people knew and respected us. It was an interesting experience for me; Wings Plus was great - still the great food that we had remembered from 8 (gasp!!) years ago; it was interesting to drive down our old street and see how much things have changed - how big the trees are now, the people who bought our house put a pool in the backyard, so that was new; remembering old friends from our coldesaque was fun, although most of them don't live in that area any more. The school was maybe the most interesting part of it all - it was such a weird feeling to be back on that campus again - I could actually see myself in my mind's eye from 8-10 years ago walking around, talking to my friends, planning different school activities, watching my friend Sara at soccer practice, thinking about the great things that happened in the library on campus - it was my favorite place on the entire campus because of all the books, and anybody who knew me, knew that they could find me there.

We moved to Georgia the summer in between my junior and senior year of high school; I remember when my dad told us we were moving - I cried! I had just started dating this boy that I had had a crush on for...well, a long time, I had friends, and for once I didn't feel like I was completely on the outside. But I put on a good face - moving my senior year meant that it was my brother's junior year, and this would be better for him because he played football; if we had moved right before his senior year, he wouldn't have gotten to play his senior year.

As I walked around PPCHS campus this time, I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if we hadn't moved - where would I be now? Would I have served a mission? or would I have been married to that boy that I was dating? or maybe neither. Would I have even come to BYU? who knows! Well, I guess the Lord does; I remember when I was crying all those tears 8 years ago because I didn't want to move, we sang, "Called to Serve" in a sacrament meeting, and I knew then that we needed to go to Georgia, even if I didn't like it.

And you know what? Life has turned out pretty good :) I got to come to the college I always wanted to go to, I served a mission, which has been one of the greatest blessings in my life, and, as much as I thought back then that I loved that boy, I'm so grateful I'm not married to him (he's not a bad guy...he's just not for me). I don't necessarily know, though, that I would claim Florida as the place that I'm from out of all the places that we've lived. I guess my answer will just have to stay the same for now - "my parents live in Seattle" - because saying "I'm from Utah/Arizona/New York/Brazil/Chile/Mexico/Florida/Georgia/Washington" is just too long; but all those places are, in a way, home to me - they are where I've grown up and become who I am today, and I wouldn't change any of it for anything!