Tell us about the farthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

Today I thought I would do the Daily Prompt. For those of you who are interested, I am working on some new short stories, as well as Part 2 of my Etherbooks.com published story “House of Mystery”. I know it’s been several months since I posted new stories. Sorry about that. Life has been crazy lately, with moving, then floods and storms and everything that comes with all that.

Now though I feel the need to start writing in earnest again.  I’ve missed it. I hope you have missed it also. But for now, I’ll do the Daily Prompt.

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It’s complex for me, telling you about the farthest I’ve been from home.

How can it be complex you ask? Well it depends on your definition of “home”. Do you mean where I was born and grew up? Or do you mean ‘home’ as in where I feel the most comfortable? Or does it just mean where I lived? See, complex. Maybe it’s just me making it complex.

So let me break it down for you. I was born and raised in Wisconsin. Good old Milwaukee to be exact. I hated it. I did. I hated living there and would never live in Milwaukee again. (Sorry folks who live there, no offense meant).  I just never felt like I belonged there. I always felt like an outsider, even in my own family of 2 parents and 3 siblings. I was so lonely 99% of the time.

I was a super shy kid and would spend most of my time reading books. I was painfully shy. Really. I would blush so red that it actually hurt. It took me a long time to get over that shyness.

Even when I was ‘home’ I was away. In my mind and my heart I was away from where I grew up. I always dreamed of far away places. I was determined to see other places and so I did.

My first venture of living away from Wisconsin is when I moved to Mississippi. Yeah, well that didn’t last but six months. I didn’t like where I was and I didn’t like the people I was with. So then if was off to Texas, where my younger brother was. Looking back that was a mistake and yet not. I suppose it was fate.

I lived in Texas for 20 years. I liked it for the most part. I thought I had found ‘home’ at last. Now, I think it was just another stopping place before I moved on. Yeah, a looonnnggg stopping place. 🙂 I had some living to do and some hurting to do as well. I got married, stayed married too long, then got divorced. I met some fantastic people living there. There are a lot of Texans that have hearts as big as the state they live in.

I don’t regret moving to Texas or staying as long as I did. I still have a bit of my heart in Texas with great friends. A bigger chunk of my heart stayed in Texas with someone I met and lived with after my divorce. I do believe he was the love of my life. He’s gone now, died of diabetes complications much much too young.

I also left a bitter angry stalker as many of you know. I’m not going to dwell on that one.

So now I’m in Canada. But the big question is, is this my home?

Honestly, I don’t know. It’s a wonderful country with some great people. I’ve been here for a while now. So this is as far away from where I grew up as any place I’ve been. Around 1200 miles give or take a few hundred.

Is it home?

For now it is. I think I’m basically still looking. I might not be able to look any further. This may well be the end of my journey. Only time will tell.