Home, home, home-less?

I read this article earlier today titled, “What it’s Like When Your Hometown No Longer Feels Like It’s Your Home“. When first reading the title, I thought it would read a little differently than it actually did. Or, maybe I hoped it would read differently than it did so it could be another one of those Facebook articles that I found relateable. 

 Instead, I found it to be unsettling. After returning to the home I grew up in after my time at the University of Hawaii, it did feel like home. However, it was different- I felt at home, but also felt like a burden.  I had been gone for longer than I had ever been before, it was normal for my parents to live in my home without me there. They could come and go as they pleased without having to worry about me, but now that I was home, I threw off the new normal. 

I have this very clear memory of myself and Chris laying in my dormroom bed one Saturday afternoon during spring quarter of my sophomore year, we had been laying there being lazy all day long. I remember telling him I hated it here (in ellensburg) and that I wanted to go home. When he told me he would take me home, I could feel the lump in my throat getting bigger and bigger as I told him that’s not what I meant. The tears started to roll down my cheek and on to the black fleece sheets when I frantically tried to explain to him how I’ve had this huge sense of homelessness sitting on my shoulders, knowing that my dad and Andrea (who had just moved the summer after my first year of college) were living the amazing city-life without me, and that my mom was moving too once I was through with that quarter; and not just an hour or so north, but over two-thousand miles away. 
 

The view from my dad and Andrea’s Seattle apartment

 When my parents (both sets) were moving/had moved away from home I felt like I was being left behind, like maybe they thought that since I was in college I wouldn’t care that they moved. I was confused and hurt and it frustrated me that my feelings towards this were more negative than positive.

I’ve found myself disliking breaks during the school year more and more as they come and go; Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, spring break, summer break and all of the extended weekends and days-off in between. The breaks in school where everyone goes back to the place where they grew up, to see all of their friends and family, to get to vacation back to the familiarity and comfort of being back home. I am so insanely jealous of everyone who gets to do that every weekend, every summer break, whenever they can or want to.   

I don’t feel as though my parents left to these places with the intention of making me feel this way, I know they did not. I am happy for my mom for finally being able to live in Texas, and for my dad and Andrea to finally be able to live in the city. And I am grateful that they waited until after I had graduated high school so it didn’t have the effect on me that it would have back then. I’m not sure which situation would have been harder to deal with, both come with their own set of obstacles and challenges, all of which I would have / am learning how to overcome and work through. It is definitely an interesting feeling to say the least, to no longer call the place that I had lived for nearly 18 years my home. 

Now here I am, living alone for the first time (well, with Brody) in this town that I’ve been in for the past three years, while Chris is back home working for the summer. Three years and it still doesn’t feel like home, ugh.  

A small glimpse of the beauty that Central Washington has to offer

 Living on my own for the next handful of months has already shown me a handful of the challenges it will bring. I know how to be alone, I have always been a fairly independent person for the most part, but as I’m sure you can imagine it gets pretty lonely, and loneliness and I don’t have a great history together. I’m sure I sound like that girl that annoyingly complains about being away from her boyfriend even though we’re together all the time. But, that’s just it, we are together all the time. We live together.  

Chris and Brody posing for a pic, as always

 So yeah, I will complain about being alone because it’s different, it’s something I’ve yet to experience and I’m nervous. Having no one to come home to, or talk about my day with face-to-face, or to talk to with until I fall asleep; I said I know how to be alone, that doesn’t mean I like it. Being alone can be a good, even great thing, I’ve just gotta figure out how to create that positive outcome is all. But I suppose this is just one of the millions of things I will be learning as an adult in the real world, I mean I am only one year away from my college graduation…
 

Sittin’ on the couch with mom

 I am glad that I have Brody here with me though, the love that your animal has for you always amazes me. Maybe I sound crazy, (I’ve heard living alone can do that to you) but when I’m upset it’s like Brody knows. He always rubs his head against my cheeks when I’m crying, like he’s wiping my tears, then he lays with me until I stop crying or fall asleep. If my tummy hurts he lays himself right up against my tum, like he’s trying to put the same type of pressure as I would if I was holding my tummy. He lays on my lap when I’m angry, he sleeps in my bed with me when I’m lonely or scared. Yeah yeah I know what you’re all thinking, Hea has really turned into that crazy dog lady, maybe I have. 

I’m excited, anxious, nervous, and probably whatever else you can imagine, about facing this new challenge. With work, school, and new friends, I am looking forward to seeing what these next couple of months have in store.