Born and raised in Pennsylvania, that’s me. I have lived most of my life in the state of Pennsylvania. I grew up in a small town about an hour north of Philadelphia. I never traveled far from the Northeast. Most of our family vacations were spent at the Jersey shore. Pretty much everything I knew about life and the world was from living in the Northeast.
Moving away from my family was something I never considered when I grew up. My family was very close knit. I grew up in the house that my Mom and her sisters grew up in. We all went to the same church my grandparents and great grandparents attended. Most of my extended family lived within an hour of our family home. So, when I first married, it wasn’t a surprise that our first house was on the same street that my sister lived on and a street away from my other sister. Living in another state was never something I imagined but life tends to throw you curve balls.
Being adventurous was something I would never have considered myself to be. I am a homebody, curl up on a couch with a good book or a hallmark movie and I’m very content. Traveling and moving away was never really a thought that crossed my mind. My husband, though, is completely opposite of me. Eric served in the Navy. He saw a good portion of the world and absolutely loves adventures; the more adrenaline filled the better.
The first test of my comfort zone was our honeymoon. Being a navy guy and loving the sea, Eric wanted to cruise the Caribbean. This would be my first real adventure and let me just say I was terrified, but I trusted my husband and knew he would not let anything happen to me. So, with my fresh new passport, we hopped on an airplane and flew to San Juan to meet our cruise ship. We traveled the southern Caribbean with port calls in St. Thomas, St. Lucia, Grenada, Guadeloupe, and the Dominican Republic. The week was the longest and most exhausting week of my life, but it was also the greatest adventure I had ever had.
Yup, you guessed it I was hooked. The door to new possibilities was opened. So was the idea of living outside my immediate comfort area. I still didn’t want to go far from my family but due to my husband’s job opportunities we made a few moves within in Northeast.
My husband works in the nuclear industry. Our first major move was to the mid-state, Hershey, Pennsylvania. Not far from family, a little over an hour. The distance wasn’t that bad for us. We didn’t all live in the same town, but we still were able to have plenty of family gatherings. The area was beautiful, and we enjoyed living in Hershey.
A few years after our move to Hershey, my husband’s work took us to Brattleboro, Vermont. This was a little farther from family. We were still living in the northeast. Family gatherings didn’t happen as often as before, but we did manage to visit often. It didn’t take long for the cold, the few feet of snow and the living in nowhere to wear on us. After two years, we were ready to move back to Pennsylvania and that is what we did.
Back to Hershey, Pennsylvania is where we headed to. I was ready to plant some roots and make a home for my growing family. Moving anywhere else didn’t seem like an adventure I wanted to take anymore. I was perfectly content staying put in Pennsylvania. I still wanted to take adventures, but my adventures would be done through traveling. For ten years, that’s exactly how life was for my family. We were happy in our little home in Hershey, Pennsylvania, but again life likes to throw you curve balls.
Life is taking my family on a new adventure. After the closing of the nuclear plant my husband work for, we found ourselves moving south for a new job opportunity. Everything moved so quickly, from the time he accepted the new position to the time the moving company came and packed up all our belongings was a short month. After the final signatures on the sale of our home, we packed up the car with our two kids, one dog, and a bunch of house plants, saying goodbye to our life in Hershey. We traveled five states, six hundred forty-two miles and four days later we were in our new home in South Carolina.
Living in the south was something I never considered. The only thing I know about living in the south is what I read in a Nicholas Sparks novel or a Southern Living Magazine. After we settle into our new surroundings, my family will be ready to embrace our new adventure because we are southern in the making.
southerninthemaking.com 