Many people ask why those who live in an area that is occasionally hit with a disaster don’t move elsewhere. I’ve asked. However, I’ve always been a bit of an army brat, a wanderlust. I’ve lived in several different U.S. states on both coasts, several different towns, counties in some of those states. Moving never bothered me much. It’s often annoying, or a challenge but for me a new area means new experiences, new places to visit, new people, and increased knowledge.

If I’m honest here I need to admit that I may be something of an exception. I’ve been surprised repeatedly, although by now I no longer should be, with the information that most people don’t move as much or at all. Okay, they might move to a new house in the same town, or a town or two away from their original hometown. But up and move to a different state? Not really, unless it’s a seriously great job offer or a retirement decision, and even then the majority don’t.

And that’s the basis for what I’m getting at. People are not comfortable living in a place they don’t call home, or where their roots are. Consider a family that’s been working the same farm for three, four, or five generations. It gets passed down to whichever child wants it the most. Other siblings relocate nearby. They usually have family dinners weekly or monthly. The holidays mean “I’ll be Home for Christmas” literally. They love where they live in a way that a wanderlust like me doesn’t understand except abstractly.

People they’ve known and been friends with since early childhood are important to them too.

I get that funny gut feeling when I hear that song but when in my head I try to imagine heading home for the holidays, well it just isn’t there. But I’m different and I kinda like it, but too wish I could share that feeling of being needed of having a home to go to for the holidays, I guess.

So after a disaster hits, people pick up the pieces and within a while, they’ve restored their homes, farms, businesses, and resume life as their forebears did. They honestly don’t think there might be a better way or a better place.

Don’t be hard on them if they don’t do like you think you’d do if in their shoes, because without understanding the meaning of home the way they understand it, you can’t be in their shoes. Period.

For me it’s live and let live, care about people and stop criticizing what you cannot understand. For me a disaster or two means pack up and move, but hell that’s what I’ve done because, well I did it. And who knows, the next move might be to a place I’ll learn to call home in the same way they do. Or perhaps home to me is inside, not a tangible place at all.

Perhaps truth is an illusion. Since none of us think, act, or feel like anyone but ourself, then the same must apply to truth. Thus making truth quite subjective. Your truth cannot be my truth. Mine cannot be yours.

Wondering how people get along? By avoiding truth that applies to all of us. Shallow perhaps but that does explain the behavior of the haters among us. Twist fact with a dose of the mind drug ‘fantasy manipulation’ and a alternate reality squeezes between truths like worms feeding on mental lesions.

I wonder about many things. Some are ‘why did it happen’ things that litter the past like leaves twirled about by a autumn breeze. They land and perhaps stay until time pulls them back into the earth. And they are then forgotten. Others swirl about every time the air moves when a person or animal passes. Those are curious as if the person or animal passing somehow stirs up the ‘why’ like they are connected to the original event. And is that even possible?

Links that weave through time, my time. Perhaps it’s the original event that created a ‘why’ that could not be resolved then or maybe ever. I can wonder and spin around until gravity yanks my feet out and I am left with nothing but a small ache that chooses to remain forever tugging at my heart with a sadness or little grief.

I wonder why I allow people to be so important that their actions affect my ability to understand? Or even function normally whatever normal is. I’m of a nature, I suppose, that requires answers. Wish I didn’t. That could be a wonder too.

Then I wonder about daily events like watching activities too incomprehensible, too impossible for me to alter. Why watch? Why care? Each moment of life is an entity in itself. Most trickle into the next without noticeable transition. Then there are those that baffle thought. Why did that just happen? Why did they just do that? Why do I care?

Nothing. That is the best moment. When nothing of significance occurs. My cat decides this is the moment you need my company. No complications. A moment like that.

Yeah, I wonder. I’m supposed to be a social creature yet when I have to deal with other people I know whatever is alive in their minds is nothing like mine or anyone else’s. Their expectations are alien to me. Mine is to them. I often look at a person and see someone who has neglected their physical self. They are wounded by the life they lived. Their moments left battle scars. So I wonder have mine? Perhaps I cannot see them. Maybe others can.

Yeah, the wonder. Emotions are traps. If I felt nothing I’d be more at peace. Is that possible? My cat doesn’t feel emotions as I do. He’s got his needs, his desires. But they seem so much more logical.

Maybe I’m just tired of it all. Give as much as possible and get in return, what? At some point in time, I believe it just stops mattering. Doesn’t it? Giving became obligation. I wonder. Nothing fills the hole inside, the little sadness that sits in the center of my being seems permanent.

Obligation is not fulfilling. There is no sense of selflessness. There’s no warm feeling of accomplishment or satisfaction. It’s more like well that’s one less thing I must do. But honestly, occasionally the needs of others seems like a bottomless pit of darkness and despair, draining life. I imagine it’s their sense of selfishness that’s draining. The ‘give me’ some glances holds, some gestures. Words rattle around but most often don’t match with the actions that follow them. That’s a ‘get me’.

Yup, I wonder.