Maybe I was born restless or maybe even defiant. But I knew early that I didn’t belong where I came from …and I certainly didn’t hew to the party line.

I had the wanderlust and wander, I did, across these big United States time and time again, up and down the California coast (never further south than the top part of the central coast or further north than the San Francisco Bay peninsula).

I wandered through relationships, too, finding it hard o settle into one for the long term. Forever just wasn’t in my lexicon for the longest time.

As with anything, there were costs and benefits. Sometimes I’d look with longing at people who had rooted somewhere, become a full member of a community, of their family.

But I couldn’t do it.

I like lots of stimulation, to see and experience different things all the time. Set too long in one place, I stagnate. So when I lived in both Florida and California, traveling between my two homes, it was a satisfying lifestyle. Multiple relationships aren’t for everyone, but they worked for me, while I waited to meet the person I’d want to stick to like glue.

It’s not how my family chose to live. They rooted, and as a result, I have always been the odd one out. The one others looked at askance because they simply couldn’t understand my need to be in transit, in or out of a place. Or a relationship.

Some of them saw me as a little lost. But I was never lost. This was just my path.

We’re all given personas within our families and mine was more black sheep than white. I didn’t see it that way, but still, it was hard to avoid letting others’ view color how I thought of myself, at least a little.

Even though I couldn’t be any other way, sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that I might be just a little too different.

Now, in our later years and to my great shock, it turns out that I might be the normal one, after all.

I lived my life along the way, working out my issues as I went. But some of my family weren’t so lucky.

Normal.

I don’t even like the way it sounds.

And yet, in the end, comparatively speaking, I am.

It’s going to take some getting used to.