that old home problem again.
I’m back in DC. I’ve been back, or at least my body has. My mind has been somewhere else entirely, lost in plans that keep hitting walls and bouncing back at me, rather than falling cleanly into operation. Despite repeated attempts to attack one issue at a time, not let them meld into the problem that ate Manhattan, things keep wanting to intertwine. Internships mean location, means feasibility, means money. Study abroad means schedule, means summer classes, means location, means money, means job, mean nix the internship. Job means transportation, means location. Perhaps if I wrote a logical proof of this I could read it better (note to self: something new to work on in Archaeology).
I wish I had somewhere neutral to go to sort all this out. I wish I had parents that offered guidance of some sort, past “marry someone Jewish”. My friends keep saying things like, “I just need to go home and discuss my options with the parents, and sort it out” and I wonder if its better or worse that if I ever went home and said, “Mom, Dad, these are my choices, what’s best?” they’d laugh and say, “You’re the genius who wanted to go off on your own, so you tell us. What is?”.
I’m tired of being here in the city. I like it, but I’ve had enough for the year. I am terribly homesick for a home that does not exist. Something that was comfortable and nurturing, that I can long to go back to. But home was never comfortable. Dave’s couch was the first place I really felt home, and it’s not even the same couch anymore. The room where I hung lights and fabric and photographs, that is no longer mine, freshman year was the second, the third the one I'm sitting in now and a month away from being evicted from once the semester ends.
Home was at Rachel's and Val's in high school. It was on Saturday nights with Jamie, Ari and Dave. Senior year it was in Paul's car. These are not places that exist much anymore, past what I can remember about them. If home was ever a father and mother and dinner on the table with a side of peace of mind, then I certainly don't remember it. I remember tiredness and illness, and lots of heart and good intentions and people spread too thin to be holding down a home.
I feel most like a turtle. Home is wherever I put myself and thus I will always have somewhere to be. I will always be independent (that's what you wanted Joanie, remember? Above all....) And then there are the times that I wish I were not my own home. That I had somewhere safe to return to.
I wish I had somewhere neutral to go to sort all this out. I wish I had parents that offered guidance of some sort, past “marry someone Jewish”. My friends keep saying things like, “I just need to go home and discuss my options with the parents, and sort it out” and I wonder if its better or worse that if I ever went home and said, “Mom, Dad, these are my choices, what’s best?” they’d laugh and say, “You’re the genius who wanted to go off on your own, so you tell us. What is?”.
I’m tired of being here in the city. I like it, but I’ve had enough for the year. I am terribly homesick for a home that does not exist. Something that was comfortable and nurturing, that I can long to go back to. But home was never comfortable. Dave’s couch was the first place I really felt home, and it’s not even the same couch anymore. The room where I hung lights and fabric and photographs, that is no longer mine, freshman year was the second, the third the one I'm sitting in now and a month away from being evicted from once the semester ends.
Home was at Rachel's and Val's in high school. It was on Saturday nights with Jamie, Ari and Dave. Senior year it was in Paul's car. These are not places that exist much anymore, past what I can remember about them. If home was ever a father and mother and dinner on the table with a side of peace of mind, then I certainly don't remember it. I remember tiredness and illness, and lots of heart and good intentions and people spread too thin to be holding down a home.
I feel most like a turtle. Home is wherever I put myself and thus I will always have somewhere to be. I will always be independent (that's what you wanted Joanie, remember? Above all....) And then there are the times that I wish I were not my own home. That I had somewhere safe to return to.