Home Is Where the Heart Is

Ugh. Doesn't it bother you that such a famous saying ends with a dangling participle? Irks the hell out of me. As I'm sure it's becoming apparent by now, I only really have time to write about my own stuff when I'm home, and I've always got new things on my mind at that time. I wrote half of the Mexico blog and my power went out, so God knows if I'll ever have little enough going on in my head to finish it...I may abandon ship. Don't judge me.

Despite the fact that traveling gets easier, and you start memorizing airports and CT Limo trips, going home never ceases to be strange. Furthermore, the more time you spend away from home, the less it feels the way you remember it when you get back. My idea of "home" has become so scattered, so far removed from the familiar concept with which I grew up. Of course, I've talked about life as a college nomad before. I talked about how I fell in love with Yale, how home ceased to be enough for me, and how difficult it was to return.

Days after I wrote that post, fate stepped in and threw me a line. I spent the summer falling so deeply in love with a person that I barely recognized myself, or my family for that matter, since I spent so little time with them. I became that girl, the one who all her friends eventually start hating because she's so wrapped up in her boyfriend. I was unbelievably ignorant and blissful, despite the fact that I had gone down this road before, and it ended in epic failure. The summer ended, and life spat me out at the foot of my beloved Yale before I had time to take a steadying breath. As ecstatic as I was to see my best friends and get back into the life I love so well, I was miserable. I spent the first night there sobbing uncontrollably on the phone with my dear boyfriend, begging him to jump a plane and ease my suffering. And I never beg.

Inevitably, however, Yale worked her magic on me again. I started taking incredible classes, going to incredible parties, and realizing how badly I'd missed my incredible friends. I still talked to my boyfriend daily, sometimes more than once a day, and it never felt like a chore, but work was piling up. Little disagreements that didn't seem too bad were magnified greatly by the distance. I began experiencing the familiar horrible sinking feeling that I'd felt the year before-I was losing my dedication to my long distance relationship, and it was heartbreaking. The problem with being the jerk who ends the relationship is that it isn't nearly as easy as it looks to the other side. You don't just stop feeling, stop caring about this fantastic person to whom you've given so much of your time. Your beautiful synchronicity is damning in that you feel exactly the pain you're causing. He answered the phone by telling me he'd just gotten his hair cut, because he knew I didn't like how fresh haircuts looked on guys, so it would be grown out just the way I liked it by the time he came up to see me in two weeks. My heart broke.

Being friends after ending a relationship like that is ideal, yet practically impossible. This person was a huge part of your life, and you still love them dearly, but just as you can't shut out your guilt and unhappiness with making the right decision, you can't shut off your love. You try to move on and end up eating way too much kettle corn and Sour Patch Kids, but in the end you just end up gaining five pounds and having one more thing to be unhappy about. We tried, but friendship just led us right back to where we'd started, and I finally broke off all contact in an attempt to save his heart by just a little, if I could.

Every homecoming you make is a visit with the ghosts of who you used to be. You see your old preschool and remember life as a tiny ball of excitement, how everything was so much bigger and bolder. You see your high school and remember the screaming fans at Friday night football games, and the many people you were in just those four years. You see the places you went when you were in love and remember how every color stood out as perfect, and every night ended in an overwhelming sadness mixed with excitement to spend the whole day in love again tomorrow. How can you possibly compare to that ghost, who explodes with passion and love for every breath she takes? And are you really so pathetic that you need to be in love to be that way again?

Yeah. I think you do. I think that happiness comes in a beautiful array of forms, but there is no happiness like the glow that comes from love. We need it, as primal beings, to give us reason to continue our lives, if not purely for the biological need to reproduce. We're both victims and honored guests of love, and every ounce of what you get must be eventually given back (yeah, Avatar reference).

So home has new meaning for me now. One home has unrelenting work, unrelenting play, and priceless people. The other has incredible family and friends, but ghosts that creep in when you go to bed for the night and your mind wanders to all the places it shouldn't. If home is where the heart is, then I'm even more confused than ever before.

How's that for ridiculous melodrama?

T.