You CAN go home again, but it kind of sucks.
My sister moved out to Peoria a week or so ago, and since my brother's peeling sports-hero wallpaper and shoebox-sized closet was beginning to grate on me, tonight I moved back into the bedroom my sister had vacated, the one I slept in as a child. The feeling is rather bizarre, especially because when I made up the bed the sheets I found were my old flannel winter ones. Although the room is cleaner than it usually was during the first segment of my tenure here, and somewhat differently laid out, it still seems a bit like a time-warp. (It's just a jump to the left...) I have been sleeping in this bed since I was six years old. After all that I have been through and done, I am right back here again. Oh, too weird.
It's not all bad, though. Moving home has given me a real sense of how far I have come. In some ways I have slipped back into role (Deputy Mom, for instance, although that's the curse of all oldest children.) Mostly, though, I am realizing what of myself is still true and relevant and always will be, and how to let myself let go of the rest of it. All good things to know and to do. No matter how much it frustrates me, or how much it feels like a loss, a setback, a compromise, this year off doesn't have to be a step backward.
I do have to rearrange the furniture, though. Putting the bed right between the windows was not my sister's brightest idea. And she wondered why she was always freezing.
It's not all bad, though. Moving home has given me a real sense of how far I have come. In some ways I have slipped back into role (Deputy Mom, for instance, although that's the curse of all oldest children.) Mostly, though, I am realizing what of myself is still true and relevant and always will be, and how to let myself let go of the rest of it. All good things to know and to do. No matter how much it frustrates me, or how much it feels like a loss, a setback, a compromise, this year off doesn't have to be a step backward.
I do have to rearrange the furniture, though. Putting the bed right between the windows was not my sister's brightest idea. And she wondered why she was always freezing.