The First Time I Left Home

I've started over more times than I can count, although for a long time I didn't think of it that way. I thought of starting over as something that happened when I had failed at something, when a plan didn't work, or when life forced me into a direction I hadn't expected to take. Looking back now, I see it differently. Some of the biggest changes in my life didn't happen because I knew exactly where I was going. They happened because I knew I couldn't stay where I was.

One of my earliest experiences with starting over was the first time I moved out of my parents' house. Leaving home for the first time is supposed to be exciting. It's supposed to represent freedom, independence, and the beginning of adulthood. For me, it was all of those things, but it was also a lesson I wasn't prepared for: sometimes leaving doesn't mean you're ready for everything that comes next.

I remember what it felt like to finally have a place of my own and to make decisions without having to answer to my parents. There was something powerful about knowing that I was responsible for myself. At the same time, independence came with responsibilities and challenges that were very different from what I had imagined. Eventually, I found myself having to move back home.

Moving back was difficult because it felt like I had gone backward. When you've finally made the decision to leave, coming back can feel like admitting that you couldn't make it. I think I carried some embarrassment about that. I wanted independence, and needing to return home made me feel like I had somehow failed at something that everyone else seemed to know how to do.

But moving back home wasn't the end of my story. It was simply where that particular chapter ended.

At the time, I couldn't have known that another opportunity to start over was already ahead of me. Eventually, I made the decision to join the Army. That decision would take me much farther away from home than I had ever been and would change the direction of my life in ways I couldn't possibly have understood beforehand.

Joining the Army was another kind of leaving. This time, I wasn't just moving into another home or trying to figure out adulthood. I was stepping into an entirely different world. I was leaving behind what I knew and agreeing to become part of something bigger than myself.

There is a difference between wanting to leave and being ready to leave, and sometimes you don't know which one you're doing until you're already gone. I didn't have a perfect plan for my life. I didn't know exactly what the future would look like. I just knew that I wanted something different and that I was willing to take a chance on myself.

The Army became one of the biggest chapters of my life. It gave me experiences, relationships, responsibilities, challenges, and memories that would stay with me long after my service ended. It also taught me things about myself that I probably couldn't have learned by staying comfortable.

Looking back, I realize that my first attempt at independence didn't have to work perfectly for it to matter. Moving back home didn't erase the courage it took to leave in the first place. It taught me something. The same thing is true of every starting-over moment that came afterward.

I've sometimes looked at my life and counted the times something didn't work. I moved out and came back. I left home for the Army. I eventually left the Army and moved again. I entered relationships that didn't last. I changed homes and states. I've gone to college more than once and am now going back again.

If I only look at the endings, it would be easy to convince myself that I've spent my life failing and beginning again. But that's not the whole story.

The other way to look at it is that I kept moving. I kept trying. I kept believing there might be something different waiting for me on the other side of whatever wasn't working anymore.

That doesn't mean every decision I've made was the right one. It doesn't mean I wouldn't change some of the choices I've made if I had the opportunity. I've made mistakes, and I've had to live with the consequences of some of them. But I've also learned that a mistake doesn't have to become a permanent definition of who I am.

Starting over for the first time taught me something I would need for the rest of my life: sometimes you have to be willing to begin again without knowing exactly how the story will turn out.

I wish I could go back and tell the younger version of myself that moving back home wasn't proof that she couldn't succeed. She was still figuring things out. She was still becoming the person she would eventually be. She didn't need to have everything figured out on her first attempt.

Maybe none of us do.

The first time I started over, I thought I was going backward. Now I understand that I was learning how to move forward.

And that wouldn't be the last time I would have to do it.

My past is a chapter, not the whole story. And the girl who once thought starting over meant she had failed would eventually learn that sometimes starting over is how we find out what we're capable of.