home

Lloyd talked a bit about all the places he's lived. It's an impressive list. I guess the main reason to post mine in reply is to demonstrate the stark contrast.

• 1976-1978 - Corpus Christi, TX


• 1978-1981 - Ingleside, TX (across the bay from Corpus Christi)


• 1981-present - Corpus Christi, TX (again)
• Topeka St.


• Montclair Dr.


• 1995-present - Austin, TX
• University Ave.


• Willow Creek Dr.


• Grove Blvd.


• Peterson Ave.



Just for perspective's sake, none of these places are more than 200 miles from one another.

The seven years I've been in Austin represent the total of my undergraduate, graduate, and professional career, and probably until I started graduate school in 1999, I still considered Corpus Christi home. I'm now at that awkward stage of slowly changing over my permanent address to be my apartment in Austin. There's just too much time between trips to see the family at the coast.

So, home.

My mom was a navy brat. She moved every year or two and spent seventh grade in three or four different schools. I don't know if she'd know what to answer if you asked her for her hometown. It made her an introvert and gave her the ability to entertain herself. As a result, she wanted for me the exact opposite -- stability and the ability to grow up in the same place, so I could make friends and grow attachments.

And so it was that I spent my entire school career in the same house, and of the people I met in first grade, many went to college with me. Of course, the border between new friends and old friends isn't as impermeable as it might seem. New people came into the school, and in high school, our networks split up based on neighborhood; but the mutations were generally organic. Friends weren't ripped away -- they were just a little harder to get to.

And sure, it allowed me the ability to know people really well, and to let them know me, but you can't underestimate the liability of having people around you all the time who knew you when you were six. That's a very long memory.

So when it came time for college, I looked forward to the fact that there were some people I'd never see again. I relished it, in fact, and I still do. But in college, even though some of my old friends were present, I more or less lost touch with all of them. I guess that's the point where we all grew up and took steps toward learning who we really were. And that's when we became bound by interests, rather than neighborhoods or old alliances.

And that, I think, is when home changed.