Moving.

I’m moving.

I abhor moving. More specifically, I abhor packing. Actually, when I come right down to it, what I really cannot bear is the act of disassembling my home.

Home. Where the heart is. Where you hang your hat. And so on. All of my life, and to this very day, the most disconcerting question posed to me by strangers or new friends is, "Where are you from?" or "Where's home?" I never know quite how to answer and that fact, in and of itself, feels unsettling. I, the daughter of a Swedish mother and American father, grew up in Copenhagen, Rome and Brussels. Though I didn't know it at the time, there is a term for people like me. I'm a Third Culture Kid. According to the government's website, a TCK has spent some or most of their childhood growing up in foreign countries. The first time I lived in the United States (or 'America' as I used to call it in awe), I was 16 and just about to begin my senior year of high school. Until then, my time had been limited to a few weeks every other summer. East Coast humidity, the stale smell of air-conditioning, and Bubble Yum made lasting impressions.

I'm not complaining. Having had the chance to grow up in various countries, to be exposed to different languages, customs and ways of life is not something I would easily trade. Still, growing up, I never lived in a country where the street signs, billboards, or t.v. shows were in my native tongue. I negotiated public transportation, grocery stores, and the like in a foreign language. And let's be clear: my ability to understand what They were saying was always better than my ability to express myself.

Add to this the amalgam of cultures in my family: Swedish, French and American. The only person fluent in all languages was my mother. When we came together for the holidays, all of us (except my mother) butchered grammar – no language was spared, used hand gestures and overly dramatic facial expressions in order to make our points, and by the end of the holiday no one could muster a word in any language, including their own.The feeling that clung to me for years was that I belonged everywhere at once, yet nowhere. I felt European in the States, and American in Europe. And honestly, I felt neither truly European nor American.

My point is this: wherever I end up these days, I like to feel settled. I like to walk in the door and know that this is where I belong. I don't have tons of stuff but what I do have comforts me. The painted water pitcher that my parents bought when we lived in Italy. My grandmother's diary from 1927, the year she dated my grandfather and the year he proposed. My father's bookcase, and on it, the copy of Winnie-the-Pooh from which he used to read to me at night. Some may call it stuff, but to me it is home.

Which is why I've been procrastinating and have yet to pack a box. Because the moment I take that first painting off the wall and those books off the shelf, this home will no longer feel like mine and I will, again, be neither here nor there for a little while.

But packing also means moving forward, and this I love. Soon enough, I will be in my new home, a lovely one right beside the sea. I'll place the painted pitcher on the kitchen counter and Winnie-the-Pooh back on its shelf. And if someone asks, "Where's home?" I'll be ready to respond. Right here.