Just Visiting

I’ve always felt transient, mobile. I’ve never felt as though I fit in anywhere. Like I belonged in one particular place.

I have an insatiable itch to move, to go, to explore, to wander.

And I know that probably sounds romantic. Like freedom. Like adventure. Like someone collecting passport stamps and chasing sunsets and constantly reinventing themselves in beautiful new places.

But that’s not really what I mean.

What I mean is that I have never fully known what it feels like to settle.

In my best efforts to describe this deep stirring, I only come up with the statement that I’m just visiting everywhere I go. Temporary.

Even in places I loved. Even around people I loved.

I’ve planted many places. I’ve formed communities, developed friendships, and had many “homes.” I can point to apartments, houses, coffee shops, church pews, cities, and routines that once held pieces of my life. There are roads I could drive from memory and restaurants where someone might still recognize my face. 

And yet, not one single place made me want to stay forever. Not one place felt safe enough to call “home.”

For a long time, I thought this meant something was wrong with me. If I am honest, I still question myself a lot. Okay, every day.

I watched other people settle so naturally. They find a city, a rhythm, a group of people, and slowly build a life there brick by brick. They spoke about roots with certainty and permanence. They talked about “ending up” somewhere. They reveled at being a “regular” at their favorite coffee shop. Looked forward to the recurring week night events (run club, supper club, book club, etc.). All things which eventually felt boring, redundant, and restless to me.

Meanwhile, I always felt halfway gone already.

Even during beautiful moments, there was still this quiet awareness in me that life was moving. That seasons change. That people leave. That circumstances shift. That nothing here fully stays. That there is always more happening.

I don’t say that cynically. If anything, I think it has made me love places and people more tenderly. When you understand how temporary things are, you pay closer attention.

You notice ordinary moments differently. A conversation in a parked car. The comfort of familiar laughter. The feeling of walking into a coffee shop enough times that it starts to feel like yours. Tiny routines. Tiny sacred things. 

But still, underneath all of it, there has always been this restlessness. This pull toward elsewhere.

Toward movement. Toward becoming. Toward discovering, experiencing, impacting, changing, being impacted.

 So, what do you do when you feel called to wander? What do you do when you haven’t found where you fit? What if you’re not meant to fit one place but many places? To impact and be impacted all around?

I’ve started wondering lately if some people simply move through the world differently. Not rootless. Not unstable. Just aware that life is larger than one fixed destination.

Maybe some people are meant to build deeply in one place for decades. Maybe others are meant to carry pieces of themselves across many places, collecting stories, perspectives, friendships, and fragments of belonging everywhere they go.

Maybe home is not always geographic.

Maybe for some of us, the closest thing we experience to home on earth comes through people we love, moments that awaken us, and glimpses of God’s presence in unfamiliar places.

Because if I’m honest, the places where I’ve felt most alive were never necessarily the places where everything was perfect or secure. They were the places where I felt awake. Curious. Present. Connected to something bigger than myself.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been wrestling with all along.

Not permanence. But courage to allow my mind to accept what my soul has always known. Earth was never meant to feel like home.

I think I used to envy people who seemed completely certain of where they belonged. But now I’m not sure belonging has to look the same for everyone.

There are people who bloom by staying. And there are people who bloom by going. Neither is more meaningful than the other.

Maybe wandering is not always avoidance. Maybe sometimes it’s invitation.

An invitation to see more. To understand more people. To loosen your grip on comfort. To learn how to carry home within yourself instead of desperately trying to locate it in a single place. 

I still don’t fully know why my soul has always felt this way when other Christians are called to one place.

I don’t know where I’ll eventually land or if I ever truly will.

But I do know this: Every place I’ve gone has left something behind in me.

Every conversation, every city skyline, every goodbye, every ordinary day in an unfamiliar place has shaped me into someone softer, wiser, and more aware of how vast and small this world really is.

So maybe I am just visiting everywhere I go. Maybe we all are.

And maybe there is something strangely beautiful about learning how to love temporary things deeply anyway.

 bytaylormcgee