Love Story: Where Is the Heart? (Corrected & Updated)

As I quoted from my mom recently, "We got evicted a lot." I don't have a full count of how many places I lived before, say, the age of 4. But there is a bit of an episodic story in recalling those I remember...

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Now I need to go back and explain what all this has to do with love, but it took several hours and I need to go to bed!

I sometimes have to go through a whole list of nouns like this to recall what a dynamic life I've had. Some of it's affirming, others borerline fucked up. I've had the headcanon for a couple of years now that my mom is undiagnosed autistic, and I think this is a good survey of how much she hated moving but lacked "adulting" skills until my stepdad came along to smooth out her rough edges. In her own way, I am certain she loved us and prioritized us, but I don't think she'd ever received the kind of support she needed, so she had no idea what it was we were missing (it wasn't a stepfather, that's for sure, however stabilizing his presence became). For better or worse, this itinerant life gave me a strong sense of geography and a broader devotion to my neighborhood or my hometown as a whole than any one house or one street. There's deep love there, even if it isn't always reciprocated.