The Question I hate the most.

In normal conversation especially with some one you have recently become acquainted with you may asked them where they come from. To me this is the hardest question in the world to answer. And the related question, where did you grow up, is not much better. Every time I am asked on of these questions I stumble around looking for the correct answer or at least the answer that people want.

How hard can it be? It seems like a straight forward question. At least to most of you who did not grow up moving from one place to another. Let's do a quick review of binnie's life.
I was born out west in a city by the name of Edmonton Alberta. Now I have very few if any memories of this place. I was three years old when I left so all the memories I do have seem more like forgotten dreams than real memories.
When I was three I moved to a place called Chatham New Brunswick, where I start my growing up. I do remember a few things about it. Including a vague memory of looking at the military house that would become the dwelling of my family for several years. I had friends here and grew up believing that grand parents were not suppose to be close to where you live but that you got to go on vacation and travel around and see them. It was quite the interesting believe which would be shatter later on in life.
Then I moved again. I was eight when we moved. It was during the summer and many of the young kid I had started growing up with had done the same. They moved too, so I thought It was the normal thing to do.
So I moved to Kensington Prince Edward Island where I celebrated my 8th birthday about 7 days after moving into the house mom and dad had chosen for us. It would be in this place that I would learn how different my life was from other people. There was People in my new village that had never moved, even adults. There were kids on my street who lived with both their parents and grandparents and others who had grand parents who lived in Kensington. There were even people who played with their cousins every day. I was lucky if I seen mine once a year. It was bazaar, but in this second portion of my growing experience, I learned that I was the one with the different life. Then it happened again when I was 13. I moved.
I was in Junior high when I arrived in Auburn Nova Scotia. Here I found more people like me, people who grew up moving every few years, who had parents that were from different provinces and new that the world didn't end at the border of the province. I finished growing up in Nova Scotia and my parents moved back to PEI. And I wondered of to UNB then MUN.

I have been asked so many times where I am from and generally stumble when I answer this question. What do people want to know when they ask me this. Where I was born, where my parents live, where I finished high school, it is so ambiguous if you are me.
What brought on this little blurb? Not being asked where I am from, rather hearing several people from my lab discuss friends they have had since grade one. This is one of those things I have no idea what it is like. When you are 8 years of age living the place you started school, you don't have the ambition to keep writing letters to people who move every few years. It is very easy to loose track of them.