Home Part 2

I read this today..

“Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don't know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly, they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned. Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home. Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year. At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my home town. These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be. The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my hometown.”

~Henry Rollins

Home, for me no longer exists. To be sure I still have family living in the area where I grew up, but that place is different, too different now to still call 'home'.

The people are different, the town is different, and I'm being honest when I tell you that each of the times I have travelled back to that part of the country, I have felt less and less like it was 'home'.

Home is where I am now, and I think home will be someplace else a year from now.

It might be a good thing, living a life that contains more than what you knew growing up. I'm glad I decided all of those years ago that staying back there was too painful, too many memories and so much loss that I struggle with even now almost twenty years later. I feel like that loss turned into growth, painful growth to be sure, but growth.

Maybe Henry will find his way home someday, but for me, my home has become more dynamic. It's an adventure that I'm not ready to bring to an end and quietly go into the long night of old age and dreams unfulfilled. Maybe that adventure bring me to the place I'll live out my days, but we're not there yet.