Home is where you hang your hat, where the heart is, where you ate soap when you swore and where the highlight reel of your childhood sports replays every time you drive past the park where you played and the elementary school where you were tether ball champ.
Home is a bittersweet word and a location that is rife with contradiction for most of us. I'd like to say we're the normal bunch, but we all know that's bullshit. One thing I have noticed, however, is that I can’t feel indifferent to going back. I’m driving down old streets where I used to run to clear my head, passing old bars where I drank away my sorrows, seeing familiar faces to which I used to turn for laughter and comfort and remembering old times from which I turned away when I left.
You know you’ve been away a while when going back home, for business or otherwise, starts to feel like a vacation. You start to think about everything in terms of “remember when…” or “holy shit that was funny….”. But, it’s not real. I didn’t leave home to run away from everything, I left because it was time to go. I’d had wanderlust for years and couldn’t shake it. Even living in the land of good waves and sunshine can’t keep the curious from sneaking out and stirring the pot. So I left. I chose a spot 3000 miles away from home that was about as different from my comfort zone as I could find. I didn’t know a single soul within about 500 miles and walked into my new life basically sight unseen. Everyone’s done that to some extent and if you haven’t, it’s because you are either the one who already has a perfect, blissful existence, or you are a pussy. I tend to think it’s the latter of the two, but I’m cynical.
When times are tough and you’re somewhere other than “home”, it’s always so easy to think about going back. I already know where to live and get a good deal on the rent. I know all of the really good, cheap places to eat, which beaches are the least crowded and I know how to get around on side streets without any trouble at all. I could line myself up a pretty sick job with minimal effort and pick back up with my friends, right where I left off. I’ve even gone so far in this fantasizing process as to start planning out my return in my head. I start to calculate the numbers and add up the expenses to see exactly what I’d have to do to make it a reality.
But that's when I begin remembering all of the bullshit; the people who sold my ass out for better opportunities for themselves. The jobs that didn’t pay me anywhere near what I was worth and sucked off of my work ethic, taking advantage of me because I was too stupid to know my own value. The guys who treated me like shit because there was another hot piece of ass 10 feet away who had tits so fake that they wouldn’t bounce if she jumped and whose brain was occupied by so few brain cells that there was no chance of a collision up there. The valley speak that was pervasive in every single conversation with a person of my same sex and wanting to stab myself in the eye watching boys eat up the stupid like it was chocolate pudding. I remember starving for an educated conversation and thinking that I would give up an ovary to find someone who wasn’t his or her daddy’s republican; to find anyone who actually had views of the world for a quantifiable reason and who could discuss them openly without getting bored or distracted by something shiny.
Yes, I know why I left and why I can’t go back. I know why I’m where I am now and why this series of struggles is where I need to be; I appreciate it, even. I know that even if I went back “home”, I’d only be regressing back into a world where I would sit with massive frustration and the tone of all of my conversations would include the implied sentiment, “Dude, I’ve gotta get the fuck outta here.” Thus, home has now taken on the same personality as the friend who annoys the shit out of you, but who you just can't bring yourself to ditch altogether. Small doses for home and I'll be just fine.
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