I went home over Labor Day weekend. Thank God. I ditched the places, people, and routine that’ve been bogging me down with their unfamiliarity and, for three short days, exchanged them for everything that has made me me.
Being reminded of where you come from is beautifully sad. Beautiful in how instantly you’re reminded of who the hell you’ve been and who the hell you are even now, but sad especially when you realize how far you’ve moved from that. Physically even. Recognizing that time is whizzing by and left old you, the you I was certain I still was, waaaay back there down the street and around the corner and you’re not sure if you can loop back around and pick yourself up because time is moving and you’ve got to keep up. And that job you wanted and your new life you’re always daydreaming about is in the somewhere else time is whizzing you to. But damn things were so good back there on that corner. We became us on that corner. We’d do anything to hop out and get back to that corner, but that’s not forward is it? That’s hoping out and running back down the street and around the corner to my corner.
The association of who you were with where you were is overwhelming when lost. And now here you are, having been reminded, but far, far away.
Currently, I’m imitating home far, far away. I think it’s starting to work. I have my plants, and my cookbooks, and the same recorded shows on the DVR that I watch with dinners similar to the ones my Mom and Grandma cooked for me. There’s something comforting about creating home for yourself. Daunting, too. Nostalgic, always. And creative through and through. Taking what we knew and adapting against all (sometimes tearful) odds to create new home for ourselves in new spaces. That process is one of the best things keeping me grounded right now, but I think it’s something so many people miss.
I don’t mean this to be depressing, or to read as some coded call for help. At all. The post-college transition has been an adjustment in every sense for me. It’s made me miss home and the Nadia who didn’t have to get multiple renters insurance quotes, but it’s also pushed me beyond limits I didn’t know I had. It’s empowering to know you’re roughing it in the wild, wild mid-west and successfully building a home for yourself day by day. I think a lot of people are enduring, living, and embracing that, too, but no one actually talks about it that much. I’m hoping to do a lot of talking about it here. I don’t mind being embarrassingly transparent if it helps me (and hopefully a few others) live well and a little better every day.