When I lived in Texas, Rio Grande City was my “home”. I lived there, I worked there, paid taxes…it was home. But whenever a major holiday came around and people asked where you were going, it was always “I’m going home, you know home-home.”
I think it’s funny that people like me use that phrase, “home-home”. We know that where we are living at the time should be our home, even though it is only temporary. But then what do you call the place where you were raised? Where you are completely comfortable and have no need to worry about anything…that magical void where you can revert to childlike behavior no matter how old you get. That’s home-home.
I refuse to call it my parent’s house. I can’t say I’m going to visit my parents, or my parent’s house. To me that’s taking my sisters and I completely out of the equation, like we didn’t run up and down the stairs screaming at each other, or shuffle around on blankets on the tile pretending they were ships. It’s my house, it’s my home. I don’t go to visit, I go home.
I know I’ve talked about being homesick before on this blog. Texas made me homesick because I was so isolated. But I don’t know why I’m feeling it more strongly here in Phoenix then I ever did in Texas. It doesn’t help that I spent tonight watching home videos, seeing my baby sister when she actually was just a baby, or my middle sister cheering in high school.
It is getting harder and harder to get back home. It’s not just plane ticket prices or the cost of fuel. I’m getting older. I have my own life now and maybe one day that may mean my own family. And I think I’ve been reluctant to accept that because I don’t want to add another thing that will take me away from my home, my family.
There was this one moment in the home videos I watched tonight, Christmas 1999, I think. The shot is my family decorating the tree with the hundreds of ornaments my mom collects. I’m a sophomore at this point I think. My mom says, “I don’t know what we’re going to do when they move out. They’ll take half the ornaments with them.” And I replied defiantly, “I’m not going to put ornaments on my tree.”
Funny how age changes things.
It’s difficult to keep moving forward, when you’re always looking back. You need to find the balance between appreciating the past for what it was, and looking forward to the future and all that it will bring, and living in the moment. I struggle with that balance, and am not very good at it, because I’m always looking forward (rather than living in the moment).
Something to think about: will you be better able to move forward, thus leaving the past behind, if you live closer to your family? Maybe that’s what you need for your next step?