I love hearing the different ways U.S. or world history professors try to explain the baby boomer generation. They always say some variation of veterans being “excited” or “very happy” to see their wives, inevitably leading to the creation of suburbs so that they could have a quiet place to be the happiest they’ve been in years.

The suburbs were not made for those kids, they were made for the parents and the parents only. It’s easy to note that suburbs are typically safer and have better schooling, but that’s exactly it; it’s too vanilla. There are playgrounds and well-funded classrooms, but not a museum in sight or a house that isn’t turn-key.

The Disney channel original movie “Stuck in the Suburbs” does a great job of portraying a cliché suburb where the main character wants to move away to somewhere more exciting. Even though I was only around six years old when I first watched this, I related to the message instantly: the suburbs are not for me.

I know that the features of several fast food restaurants and endless streets will always hold a place in my heart, but I saw going to college as the only opportunity I had to make my home somewhere where I wanted it.

Initially, UK seemed promising: a college with a city feel right next to the city itself, but I hardly know Lexington. Even though I want the city to be my home, I can’t feel an attachment if I don’t know the area and all the little shops and parts of it that make it special.

Then there’s the question of if my brain has molded itself to never feel like I have a home. When your parents divorce when you’re about five and you move houses every half-week for the majority of your life, that leaves a stain, a punch bowl stain in the frat house living room that everyone’s too drunk to clean up until the damage is already done.

Then there’s the idea that I want to go to graduate school probably somewhere that’s not UK because my uneventful childhood desperately makes me want to explore. Do I even want a home? Or do I want to intentionally move from place to place to feel the stimulation I never got?

They say home is where the heart is, so as long as I love where I am it’ll always feel like a home. As long as the environment is exciting and I’m with people I like, then each place can be a home until it becomes a pleasant memory in my head. Right now, I’ll try to make it Lexington, and then Spain when I study abroad, then Lexington when I come back, then maybe Texas for grad school, but Hawaii would be stellar…