Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been thinking more about the forces that shaped me, and one big influence has been moving when I was a child. We lived five years in a midwestern city, then two years in a small southern town, then two years in the suburbs of a city then six years in a tiny southern town, then my last three years of high school back in the suburbs of the city from before the tiny town (500). I made friends, we left, I was lonely then made friends, then we left. But the move from the tiny town to the suburbs of a city was the toughest. I left a boyfriend I adored, a best friend I shared everything with, and the ease and freedom of a small place where we could walk in the woods from our house, or bike ten miles to the river and swim all day. In the suburbs my physical freedom was curtailed; I could not walk into any kind of nature, and I began the high school of five thousand in the sophomore year, so that all the cliques were formed and I ate lunch alone for months. I was not a rooted person, and my sense of place was confused. Now I have lived in the same town as my college years for almost forty years, and the thought of leaving is unappealing. I think my childhood left me with a feeling of not belonging, of not fitting in, and I am cautious and overly self protective. My mother had trouble with the moving as well, so she never supported or reassured me. I'm afraid I moved my children more than I should have, and perhaps I've made them insecure as well. My first husband wanted to move all the time, and with my present husband we moved first for work, then grad school, then work, but, he, like me, prefers to stick in one place. He was born and raised in the same town, in two houses nearby each other. But I carry this old wound around with me, though it is not relevant any more. We humans are strange, complicated creaturess, and investigating ourselves is sometimes a revelation, even after living a very long time.