my life
■ by Sarah P. Weeldreyer | illustration by Mary Ann Smith
Nomads and Saints Where is home when relocation is a way of life? Maybe it’s more than a point on the map. I FOUND HOME this past summer at the corner of 24th Street and Old Dominion Drive in Arlington. I don’t live there. I live in a lovely house about 2 miles from that intersection—a house that, despite the cozy shelter it has provided my family for 22
the past six years, hasn’t always felt exactly like home. As a wandering young adult and then military wife and mom of 18 years, I found that the concept of home and the permanence that word evokes have long eluded me. There’s a saying in the subcul-
ture that is Navy life: Home is where the Navy sends us. You can buy coffee mugs and wall plaques imprinted with this sentence. I appreciate the sentiment and the comfort it brings to so many of my friends, but it’s never rung true for me. Maybe it’s because my father has lived in
May/June 2022 ■ ArlingtonMagazine.com
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