During my 4 hours at the California DMV (yes, it really took that long), I had time to think. After much deliberating, I decided that it made sense to call San Francisco home and trade in my Georgia peach for a California girl. I was surprised at how difficult this was for me.
How do we identify ourselves?
“It’s a laminated piece of paper. A mere change in the headline and an addition in stating hair and eye color,” I told myself. But it was more than that. In all the places I’ve lived including China, Boston, New York, Montana, Virginia, West Virginia, Spain, etc. my permanent address was always back home in Georgia. Everything had a deadline attached to it, so it never made sense to uproot all the bills, forms, and important documents to each address until now.
Photo by Iris Papillon on Unsplash
Symbols of a New Home
It’s the first time in my life there’s no expiration date to where I am and a hiatus to 8 years of constant motion. It’s also the first time that slowly, there won’t be any letters (even if they are bank statements) waiting back home. It feels like I’m losing a part of me in giving up a piece of plastic that has rooted me my entire young adult life and saying goodbye to an era that has profoundly shaped and impacted me. And yet, I know it’s time to let go and have everything be in one place.
The other day represented a mark in time, literally a hole punch in my Georgia license. One place. One address. One home.