Noun.
All valid. All true. I've mentioned the word "home" a few times since I've started my blog. It's a word that keeps resurfacing, usually in conjunction with mini-epiphanies that occur in my everyday. So the definition is slowly revealing itself to me. Or definitions, I should say. What is "home". Home is Where The Heart Is is cross-stitched and hung on people's walls. Motley Crue sang Home Sweet Home. "There's no place like home", Dorothy repeated, clicking her heels three times to get back there…click click click... Lots of cliches out there using the word "home", created by people who obviously know something that I don't, or haven't… until now. I'm not saying I know what it is, because I'm totally not there yet. But I'm getting closer.
When I finished graduate school, I needed to leave. I mean, actually leave the state of New York. I hated where I grew up. High School sucked. Bunch of horrible people with bad intention, who picked on whatever made them uncomfortable. I think I've mentioned in a previous entry how I was affected by it all. Yeah, it sucked all right. So when I had opportunities to leave for college, then leave the state after college, I totally took them. And I haven't been back since. Well, not so much to live anyway. Just for holidays, and an 8-month stretch when my Mom had major surgery. I had been living in Denver under the most awkward of arrangements at the time, so coming back for a bit while she healed made sense. But even then, my aversion for the place reappeared, and after 8 months I was off again. And searching. In hindsight, I shouldn't have left. But that's another entry, for another day.
What is it that we search for, anyway? Surely we can't know what we want when we're in our 20's. Can we? Or are we influenced by our surroundings? Our family members? When I was growing up, I remember my Dad would sit at the kitchen table and stare out the window for long periods of time, thinking about God knows what. I feel like that happened a lot in the winter time, and I now imagine the thought in his head was something like "fucking snow… more fucking snow". The look on his face so melancholic at times. Eventually, I would find myself thinking the same thing. Staring out the same window. But I never really understood that because I don't really hate snow. It's actually quite lovely. Most of the time.
So, I have been searching for a feeling, I guess. The feeling I'm convinced I would get if I happened upon my definition of home. And I think my definition of home is the feeling of belonging. Belonging somewhere. Belonging with, and to someone. And familiarity. Surrounding yourself with things that are familiar. Familiar, familia, famille…family. It's something that I have yet to find since I set out searching in 1993. I just haven't felt I belonged in any of the cities I've lived in… Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Denver, Raleigh, Carolina Beach… All beautiful. And I love my friends who are dispersed throughout all of them. I've witnessed home and family and belonging… while with so many of them. Like my best friend's family who I've been lucky enough to spend time with every week for the past 6 months. I love this family as if it was my own. But it's not. I guess i just simply want my own.
You all know from my ramblings and blah blah blah-ging that I've started reevaluating my life. It is, after all, kinda the very definition of a mid-life crisis, which I am now fully floundering around in, by the way. And in the middle of all the reevaluating, I went to visit my family twice in the last four months. And both times, saw something new. Something I've never seen before, and that I can't exactly put my finger on, but it was beautiful. So, it has been slowly occurring to me that I actually might have a place that feels like "home". Where I kinda belong. Where things are familiar. And perhaps it's really been there all along, just waiting me me to figure it out. Isn't that funny? The very place I couldn't wait to leave. Who knew. Did I mention that I don't hate snow? It is rather lovely.
I wonder if it's because I have been gone for so long that I see it with new eyes. I mean, not just figuratively, but literally. So much has changed there. Or maybe it's because I'm on the verge of a friggin' break down and just want to shut down for awhile. Hide in my sister's room for a month. Just like that scene in St. Elmo's Fire where Jules locks herself in her room because she thinks she's a fuck-up and is having a meltdown. Then Billy comes in to talk her into coming out of the room. He tells her the story of St. Elmo's fire as he holds a lighter to a can of hairspray… Poof! …i don't know. For whatever the reason, I feel it deserves further consideration and exploration. And I shall give it just that. I'm tired. Tired of searching. I need a break. And a nap.
So, what do I do now? You know, I ask myself that daily. I have no idea. I just want to find where I belong. My home. The beach is so very beautiful. It's healing. And I am in love with it. But much like being in a love that isn't reciprocated, it can be a pretty lonely place. At any rate, I'm just waiting for some clarity. Or maybe a sign that will tell me which direction I should head in that will get me even closer.
Or, at the very least, a pair of very shiny, ruby slippers … click, click, click.
To be continued.
*Disclaimer: Image is not mine… and is not being used with ill intent or money…. it's just the only kind of ruby slippers I would ever wear.
1. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.
2. an institution for people needing care or supervision.
Verb.
1. (of an animal) return by instinct to its territory after leaving it.
To be continued.
*Disclaimer: Image is not mine… and is not being used with ill intent or money…. it's just the only kind of ruby slippers I would ever wear.
12 comments:
Maybe it's instinctual. Migratory, even. Not out of necessity for human survival, but a vestige of when it was. I know few people who loved high school, myself included. And that cast a pall on our surroundings. A need to grow, or at least escape. And when that need wasn't satisfied, a new place to roost was sought.
Some do find new homes elsewhere, and never look back. Or maybe peek back, but decide it's still not for them. Only the luckiest of us find our niche early on. But they often aren't the poets, the dreamers or the artists of the world. They are the settlers.
I don't say that in a bad way. We never would've become the country we are if some of our pioneers didn't eventually settle in their new surroundings. But I bet many of them wished they could come home. And maybe some of them did, after brightening various corners of the world.
Very true. I agree. I don't regret leaving that's fore sure. I mean, something told me I needed to. I do, however, wonder sometimes how different my life would be if, when I went back for those 8 months, I had just stayed. I don't dwell, mind you, because I own my choices, but I do wonder.
So, it will be interesting to see what the next few months have in store for me. To say the least.
As you are very well aware, I too needed out of NY after college. I am back more out of necessity than anything else, at first. I loved california, I loved my life in California but I wanted kids and I wanted them to know their grandparents etc. so here I am. I am back. I don't live in my dream house, I still don't love Long Island, my commute to work is way too long I could go on and on. I have a pretty nice house, I have the most fantastic network of friends who are truly my extended family, I have piece of mind that my kids are taken care of when I am at work by people who love them. I am home because of all of these things. It took 5 years of staying on LI to realize this and to cultivate those wonderful friendships. I would love to live back in Cali or in Vermont or New Hampshire in a log cabin in the woods and the opportunity to make that happen came up - that is my dream house - but unless I can get all of my friends, my husband's race team, my dog club, etc to come with me, that dream will just have to wait - or become my vacation home. For me - there are different reasons to call this place home but I found (upon reflection - hindsight being 20/20 you know) that I had to make a commitment to this place to make it home.
Thanks for sharing that with me, Lynn. It's interesting, the whole concept of "going back". I think if I had gone back say, 10 years ago, I might have felt like I had failed at something. Like, not finding "home" out in the world was somehow a failure. I don't feel that way now. I want a connection to where I live. And as much as I have loved a part of every place I have lived, I haven't felt connected. Who knows though. If I return to where I was brought up, and regroup and recharge, I might end up heading out again down the road. Perhaps this phase in my life is a "layover" until I can refuel. What I do know is I have a need to be with my family and in a place where I feel I fit in for awhile. I mean, I fit in here just fine, but it's a different kind of "fit".
I think you need to go where your heart takes you. I am sure that if you taked to your Babci she would have some thoughts to share with you. <3
I wish i could talk to Babci :) love you ❤️
She is listening all the time sweetie, just talk to her when you get a minute, I talk to my mom all the time and I know she listens to me and she sends me messages in the strangest ways. You will find your way, and I know that whatever you decide, you will be happy and at "home".
:) <3
I want out of the city and totally here what you are saying. I am longing for that quiet cabin in the woods, free from noise. I want to isolate, be alone and still. That calls to me. I think my "home" is an internal space. I wonder if this is a common them at our age. The longing, the questioning? Especially for us sensitive types. Anyway, thanks for your words.
It is Kel. It's definitely the age where you reflect and question everything. We're at our halfway point. Have we really done what we've wanted to? Do we even know what that is? Time to start listening to the answers better, instead of the "what if's" or "well maybe's". It's especially difficult on the sensitives too.
Thanks for reading, and for commenting. I love hearing other thoughts on this stuff :) <3
Well I wish that you would have stayed, but I'm selfish like that buddy! :)
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