A Good Dream
Freshman year I cried the night before I came home for Christmas break. Almost all of my friends had been struggling with homesickness since week one. I thought something was wrong with me because my only feelings of homesickness were tied to my cat. I didn't miss my house, my hometown, my friends, or even my parents. I missed them, of course, in a theoretical sort of way, but I didn't miss them. I didn't feel the miles between us the same way I knew some of my friends did, like someone had jammed a wedge into their heart and took a steady hammer to it.
I wasn't homesick. I was sick of home. And I decidedly did not want to go back. I'd have to go back to my grocery store job. In a small town you have two work options: fast food or the grocery store. I'd been working at the grocery store for three years and enough was enough! There's something about customer service that wears at you until you're a little stick man with a little stick heart.
Anyway, I didn't want to go home.
Home meant work. College was work too of course, but oh, how I loved it.
Home meant a month away from my new friends, my new lifestyle, my new home.
But since sophomore year, home has meant something completely different. It's almost like going back to a time I'll never really have again. Family all together under one roof, Christmas traditions... adult responsibilities as mythical as Santa Claus.
I've been back in Minnesota two weeks. Two glorious, lazy, pajama-ed weeks. I get to read books that I want to. Netflix until midnight, sleep until nine (I swore I'd establish a sane sleep schedule while I was at home. I haven't gone to bed before eleven or gotten up before 8:30). I can stay inside ALL DAY if I want to (and with this Minnesota winter, believe me, I want to). I can sleep in until the sun has been passive-aggressively shining through my window for hours.
My days are Christmas cookies and carols. Breakfast with Dad, shopping and coffee with Mom. I spent an afternoon painting with Callie and Mom and discovered a joy in watercolor, inspired by Mom's enjoyment of it. I've cuddled my little kitty girl (more than she'd like, of course, the cold-hearted wench). Sam and I rediscovered the hilarious antics of Shawn and Gus and on Psych and daily enjoy Lassiter's frustration at them. Pete introduced me to a new band, Dawg Yawp, which I can feel is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A month or so before break, I was in a car on the way home from an evening of classical music. (How posh! How Moscow!) A friend asked where I wished I could be right in that moment. I knew without thinking.
Right here.
I wasn't homesick. I was sick of home. And I decidedly did not want to go back. I'd have to go back to my grocery store job. In a small town you have two work options: fast food or the grocery store. I'd been working at the grocery store for three years and enough was enough! There's something about customer service that wears at you until you're a little stick man with a little stick heart.
Anyway, I didn't want to go home.
Home meant work. College was work too of course, but oh, how I loved it.
Home meant a month away from my new friends, my new lifestyle, my new home.
But since sophomore year, home has meant something completely different. It's almost like going back to a time I'll never really have again. Family all together under one roof, Christmas traditions... adult responsibilities as mythical as Santa Claus.
I've been back in Minnesota two weeks. Two glorious, lazy, pajama-ed weeks. I get to read books that I want to. Netflix until midnight, sleep until nine (I swore I'd establish a sane sleep schedule while I was at home. I haven't gone to bed before eleven or gotten up before 8:30). I can stay inside ALL DAY if I want to (and with this Minnesota winter, believe me, I want to). I can sleep in until the sun has been passive-aggressively shining through my window for hours.
My days are Christmas cookies and carols. Breakfast with Dad, shopping and coffee with Mom. I spent an afternoon painting with Callie and Mom and discovered a joy in watercolor, inspired by Mom's enjoyment of it. I've cuddled my little kitty girl (more than she'd like, of course, the cold-hearted wench). Sam and I rediscovered the hilarious antics of Shawn and Gus and on Psych and daily enjoy Lassiter's frustration at them. Pete introduced me to a new band, Dawg Yawp, which I can feel is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A month or so before break, I was in a car on the way home from an evening of classical music. (How posh! How Moscow!) A friend asked where I wished I could be right in that moment. I knew without thinking.
Right here.
How delightful to read your musings about home. I felt much the same way about leaving home and returning to it as you did: fairly unattached the first year and then a growing appreciation for home and all its comforts and the luxury of being cared for. Keep writing! (I know I keep saying that...)
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