I am a born traveler, best defined by the places I have been and the places I have yet to go. People ask "Where are you from?" and my story starts one of a few ways – "Good question..." "Nowhere!" "Everywhere!" Confused looks surround me and I explain that I am a Navy BRAT (Born, Raised, and Transferred *salutes badly*) who never learned to stand still.
I was born in Spain, "Oh so you're Spanish?" Well, not really. I have American parents, never got a Spanish birth certificate, and only speak the Spanish I learned at school and in restaurant kitchens. Before I was 10 years old I lived in Spain, California, Bahrain (a tiny island off the east coast of Saudi Arabia), Japan, and England. The most time I ever spent in one place was Virginia. "Ok you're from Virginia then." Well, not really. I never liked it there. When I was 12 I started visiting family in San Diego every summer. However, I spent a few years in high school in Hawai'i and that feels like home, but the longer I am away the less that's true. I went to college in Austin, Texas and made a home for myself, by myself for the first time in my life. After five years in Texas I itched to keep moving. I spent a year in Las Vegas and two months in St Petersburg, Florida. In late August of 2019 I made my first international move by myself to Sint Maarten. All these places hold special meaning for me, but someone asks me where home is and my head starts spinning.
I hope to keep traveling, to keep spinning, and to keep complicating my definition of home. My goal is to get to all 7 continents by the time I'm 30. At the point of writing this I have 4 more to go (the whole Southern hemisphere) and 5.5 years until my 30th birthday. Do you think I can do it?
This website is my digital scrapbook, but maybe it will help someone else on their journey to find home.
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