I actually feel very conflicted about the concept of home right now. I've just returned to my little town in Massachusetts for the first time after leaving for New York three months ago. We drove in around nine o'clock last night. Everything was dark and sparkly, the lights were on and there were cars were on the road, lots of them actually. It felt nice to feel, I don't know, like I was in the world again. I love my college, but it's easy to feel like you're lost there sometimes. Or like the world is rushing on and leaving you behind. Maybe that's because I'm young. I think when I am old, I will like the feeling of being tucked away somewhere, untouched by the world as it goes faster and faster and faster, like the Tucks in Tuck Everlasting (a movie which, let me tell you, absolutely broke my thirteen-year-old heart the first time I saw it).
I looked at all the familiar road signs. The stretch of highway I'd seen before, my father's white beard and the driving glasses he's so proud of, the fast food restaurants in exactly the same location I'd left them. That ugly mustard-colored house that sits across the road from the complex we live in. The sight of my little dog in the headlights, because my mom was walking her to the mailboxes when we pulled up.
And then we got into my house and it was exactly the same but exactly different. The living room, so comfortably messy, as its been as long as I can remember. I went to my bedroom, and it was...empty. My nightstand was gone from my bed, and there were new fancy pillows on the sheets. I set down my laundry bag and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at my sister unhappily. "This feels wrong," I said to her. "This feels all wrong."
"It's the same old room," she said and settled right into her bed like she'd never left it for a second.
Today I saw friends. I went to my old high school, and saw how it had changed. I visited my old band teacher: this man was like a second father to me, I don't know that I would've survived high school without him. He sat at his desk and I told him not to judge me because I'd slept through my alarm and hadn't had the time to wash my hair that morning: he showed me pictures of his daughter, who is one now, and has teeth in her head and blue eyes like him. I hugged people, people I never used to hug. We were too familiar to hug, if that makes sense. But today, I hugged them all.
I watched my best friend step off a bus and walk toward a car, where his girlfriend and his best friends were waiting for him. His girlfriend couldn't contain herself, she flung the door open and climbed out of the backseat and toppled into his arms. It was really like those reunifications you think only happen in the movies. They were so happy to see each other. They stopped hugging and kissing finally and he gave me a big long hug. We never used to hug much, only one or two notable times in high school. It felt good, but strange.
"What's wrong?" he asked me when he pulled away.
"I didn't have time to wash my hair this morning," was all I could say.
We talked a bit, but it was freezing in the wind and every time he'd catch sight of Lindsey again, he'd grab her, pull her back to him, like he couldn't stand to be away from her another second.
We went to school then, and I saw my old best friend from forever. I don't really know what to call her now. Our relationship used to be too close and then too far, and then just confusing. We've had a lot of hurt and misunderstanding and that sort of thing between us: we've been through everything together, and I don't really know where that leaves us now. I don't know what to do with it now. It was good to see her, she didn't care that I hadn't showered. She hugged me and told me to save time for her before I left. I mean to.
I walked through the hallways of my old high school and remembered what it used to be like to go there. All the things that happened to me there. All the things that changed me there. I thanked God that I didn't have to go there anymore. It had changed, and I felt an intruder, but I didn't mind that. I don't want to be familiar there anymore.
Anyway. This is just a lot of recounting and I don't know exactly what the point is. I don't have much to say about it. I just, wanted to write it down I guess, maybe to figure out how I feel. I'm not sure. It's just all surreal. It's strange.
It's strange not to know where your home is anymore. I've lived in this little town in Massachusetts for my entire life. My family's never even moved houses, not once. Suddenly, I left, for three months, and moved to New York. And now I come back here and everything has changed. I miss being home. And by saying that I don't mean in Massachusetts and I don't mean in New York.
I guess, I mean, I miss that comfort. I miss being certain of my life, certain at all, of anything. I miss feeling like I knew where I was going. I miss feeling like I wasn't scared of where I'd end up. Growing up has many lovely aspects to it, that's for sure.
But I'm frightened too, I won't pretend.
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