Numerology of a Gypsy's Shoes

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I was born in Chicago and lived here, with my mother, until I was fourteen -- in a total of four locations over that time frame.

I moved to Indiana for high school, where I lived with my father -- a total of only two locations in four years.

In the middle of summer, after I graduated, I moved back to the Chicago suburbs for college, where I attended a two-year program for an Associates Degree in Graphic Design and Multimedia (which probably cost me more than I ever made in that field). I stayed in the Chicago burbs for a little bit after college, working at the mall. Over the course of roughly three years, I lived in four locations (one of which I lived twice, so some may count that five locations).

I then moved to Mississippi to live with my grandmother -- she had been blessed with an incredible deal, house and land for only ten grand! And my grandfather cleaned it up and fixed it before we moved down there.

In Mississippi, I met a man and lived in a total of four locations. I spent almost seven years of my life with him; we moved from Mississippi, to Memphis, to Arkansas, where things went bad between us.

I tried staying there for a while after we broke up, but when I spent Christmas all alone because I couldn't afford to visit my family [the closest being my grandmother, who lived five hours away]. I realized it was pointless to continue living there, even though it was the prettiest place I've ever lived.

The number of miscellaneous southern locations I lived, excluding those in Mississippi, was only three -- totaling seven southern locations in all.

I transferred back up to the Chicago burbs with my work and moved around a bit out there until I got an amazing deal on a crummy little apartment that most girls would loathe to live in -- a place that is cozy and comfortable and all my own, even if the plumbing is awful, it's crawling with spiders and it's built so that if there's ever a fire, I would surely die if I were home.

Over the past four years, I've lived in three different locations in the Chicagoland area.

I now live two blocks from my mother, who lives in the same place I spent a majority of my childhood the first time I lived in Chicago.

Over my lifetime, I have lived in Chicagoland three times. I keep saying it's the last time, too...but I've got a settler's heart in a gypsy's shoes, always looking for home, but never seeming to find it.

So who knows where the wind will take me from here?

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