<\/strong>Some of it was by circumstance. The fact is, I never even had a chance to live in one place my entire life. My dad was an accountant for GTE (and various evolutions), so by the time I was born, Number 3 of an eventual eight kids in an Irish\/Italian\/German\/French, very Catholic family, the brood had already moved a couple of times. I started life in Williamsport, PA, my parents\u2019 hometown, but only after they spawned their first couple of kids while living in New Cumberland, PA. We were in Billtown long enough for my parents to have me and my brother Michael before we were on the road again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warren, Pennsylvania. Syracuse, New York. Littleton, Massachusetts. Higganum, Connecticut. Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, where I finished high school and went off to Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in South Jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A nomadic adulthood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The first time I made the choice to move, as opposed to being<\/em> moved, was after I graduated from Glassboro with a degree in mass communications and my parents announced that they were moving again, this time to Vienna, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC. The opportunity to launch my broadcasting career in the Nation\u2019s Capital was so compelling that I went along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got a job in the news department of WMZQ, a Top 40 country radio station, and then at the Associated Press, which was the largest news organization in the world. As soon as I saved enough to move out of my parents\u2019 house, I moved into DC, and then to Arlington, VA. Living in Washington was a fascinating experience, but I found a culture of pursuit of status and government bureaucracy a bit stultifying and champed at the bit to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Traveling woman<\/strong> Turning point<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was 30, I decided it was time to pursue work abroad. An opening came up on AP\u2019s World Desk in New York, the news agency\u2019s way station to becoming a foreign correspondent. I considered a stint in New York a necessary evil to reach my goal – it would be crowded and loud, all skyscrapers and their shadows, with no nature in which to recharge. I would hate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, I fell in love<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I fell in love with Central Park <\/p>\n\n\n\n From the moment I arrived in NY, I was hooked by that dirty, cacophonous, unpredictable, multicultural, over-the-top, awe-inspiring city. I could almost feel the creative pulse flowing into my body through the soles of my feet the moment they touched the ground at Penn Station. When I went for my first glorious run in Central Park, I almost flopped into the grass on the Great Lawn weeping with joy. Something inside me was opened up. The world got bigger. I got the job, and the Upper West Side of New York became my personal nirvana. But oops, love<\/strong> We got married and started a family. The adventure of parenting two gifted, autistic kids kept our feet on the ground for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But after a decade or so in Manhattan and nearby Mamaroneck, the 2008 recession hit and Bob lost his job. We packed up the kids and the cats and headed across the country to the rugged mountains and of Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s where we\u2019ve been for almost 10 years. We\u2019ve cycled up mountain passes, camped beside lakes, skied down black diamonds, hiked 14ers and drunk our fill of what this state has to offer. But the last kid has graduated from high school, and the next adventure awaits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life is short. The world is big. Let\u2019s go!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I know people who have lived in the same place their whole lives. Most people, I suspect. My high school peers. Friends from childhood. People in my church, who tell me stories of their parents taking them to the same church when they were young. I have one family of seven cousins who have all … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/jeffmemorial-dc-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/strong>I started traveling. I visited San Francisco, England, Scotland, France and Switzerland. I backpacked through the Loire Valley and southern France. I joined the Ski Club of International Journalists and skied in Colorado, Italy and Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Central](\"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/central-park.jpg\")
Three and a half years later, I was posted to Puerto Rico as a foreign correspondent covering the Caribbean islands. I had finally done it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Alas, love interfered with my \u201ctravel the world\u201d dreams in the form of Bob Greenawalt, a fellow adventurer whom I met a few months before I was posted to PR. Bob also had lived in many places, including Germany, while serving as an officer in the US Army. He followed me to Puerto Rico, but there was no work for a high-powered IT consultant on that perennially depressed island. So after a couple of years we returned to NYC, a city we adored that offered employment for us both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Author:](\"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Lisa-2.jpg\")
By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"