I'm not a navel gazer or anything but FFS this feeling just won't go away.

[BrokenBicycles]

Does/has this experience rung any bells with anybody else?

Since divorcing 15 years ago I've not managed to find what I think of as 'home' not only in the concrete, roof over the head way but, for example, psychologically, spiritually, socially.

I have moved 4 times in the last 14 yearrs, including moving away from the area I had lived in all my married life (over 20 years). Now I'm back since last year and once again I can feel that same creeping sense of wanting to go again, but I'm not sure where. I live in a great place btw it's not about that. In many ways I'm so lucky. I don't know what I'm trying to find tbh.
Sometimes I dream of going on the road and just seeing where it takes me. DCs all grown up and doing their own thing - I feel very connected to them no matter where I am but they're entitled to live their own lives.

I'm wll beyond middle age, had a long career from which I retired 2 years ago, not sure what that's got to do with it though.
I'm waiting for psychotherapy because this sense of not feeling anchored troubles me.

Can anyone relate? A sense of what am I here for, and a niggling feeling of wanting to keep starting again?

I do relate to this a bit I think. I've had a very stable and settled

Sorry accident! Stable and settled marriage and career - but I never feel settled at home that should say.

I wonder if it is related to difficult childhood experiences that aren't resolved (and can't be really)

Do you have ADHD? Some of us were just made to be nomads and hunters rather than farmers! We're just wired that way.

Is there an in-between option to test the waters - maybe something like housesitting to experience living in other communities/areas?
Or volunteering in your local area to see if what you are missing is a depth of connection with the local community?

That said, a friend of my mum's rented out her house and spent a year travelling around Europe in a converted van once her kids were adults - she had a great time!

Psychotherapy will be key here. You need to find your centre, and sometimes we can feel a loss when we've anchored our lives and ourselves to external things rather than a sense of inner belonging.

I've been a bit like this, on and off, my whole life. It shows up in career changes, house moves, dissatisfaction in relationships. Everywhere, basically. Nothing feels quite like it fits. However, I've still got school age children and I want to provide stability, so I get around the feeling by doing smaller versions of the huge upheaval I'm tempted to do. I have a huge list of trips and activities I want to do and I make sure I always have something from the list in my diary. I decorate a lot. I move furniture around. I move jobs frequently, but within my industry. I try new hobbies/classes. Anything to stave off the restless feeling.

BUT once the kids are grown and I'm retired, providing I'm in good health and have enough money, I'll be off. Why not? Couldn't you go and have an adventure?

I never felt the sense of being home where I grew up, even though it was wonderful, or where I studied (same) or anywhere I lived.
Then one day quite by chance I answered a (written only) ad on for a space I was interested in which I assumed was in the uk , but happened to be in a different country. Within about thirty seconds of speaking to the owner , I felt the space wasn’t for me but the country was, and within a fortnight I’d moved there. I stayed for ten years and it was fulfilling in every sense of the word, I thrived there. Unfortunately it couldn’t be forever but I’m glad to have experienced that feeling in life. In those years I learnt so much about myself. So sometimes fate can just provide you with the answers when you’re least expecting if you’re willing to take a risk.

*an ad on gumtree

Yes, I am this way. The thought of stopping in one place for the rest of my days feels me with dread.

Even when buying, I'm thinking already about when we move on. I can't understand the idea of a forever home.

I've never thought it's a bad thing though, or something I would need therapy for.

I'm much the same. I put it down to the fact that coming from a military family I had never, from birth, lived anywhere for more than a couple of years and had known from arrival the date of our departure, This was compounded when I left "home" and went into a career that took me in entirely the same direction, a huge move every two or three years. When I finally married and had dc I was determined that they would know a "home" and we stayed put for all their childhoods, All in turn went off to uni, all their schoolfriends did likewise then pinged "home", Not my lot. Not one. I myself have now moved on too, not once but three times, totally different parts of the country.
Some of us are just not grounded. I myself doubt therapy would affect this, though you may come up with some ideas for what you think may have made you this way. Or it may just be You. Why not? I've long come to terms with the fact that nowhere will be home, and there are so many wonderful places to experience.

I don't think life offers ultimate anchors and sometimes looking for a new beginning is more about finding a meaning in the act... I think we are all drifting, maybe just at a different pace... So I would say do what feels right for you, because in the end, time is not as abundant as we like to imagine and getting anchored to somewhere or someone might not even change how you feel.

I sympathise absolutely. I was never grounded when I was younger, but am grounded now by my children and husband. I already know that the day I'm once again alone I'll feel untethered again, and probably more in an uneasy way than a free-spirited way. Hopefully your therapy helps you find a solution

Very good ideas.

Oh I can absolutely relate! This comes as an awareness of feeling sick and tired of the sight of a place, of a routine. Objectively I know this is irrational as there is nothing 'wrong' here, but it's overwhelming, I just want to go away and be somewhere else.
For some reason it reminds me of a scene in 'The War of the Roses' with Kathleen Turner? She walks through the perfect rooms of the perfect house of her perfect family and find one cushion to plump, she plumps it, and she is done.

Maybe we need to change something, maybe something major, but not necessarily everything.

I too find @AwkwardPaws27 's suggestion very good.

OP, did you grow up moving about a lot? My XH was an RAF kid and they moved continually when he was young. He now can't stay in one place for any length of time and, if forced to remain in a house, he rearranges the furniture continually.

I have ADHD, but very much like Home. But I was brought up by parents who lived and died in the same house all my lifetime. So I think upbringing and background plays a large part.

What's the driver? Escape/getting away, or exploration/ moving towards? The second I think is normal and healthy. It's a big world and we're only here once. The first may need some thought.