Where's Home?

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

-Garden State

This past weekend I went home to Toledo. I feel like I'm in this weird place in my life where I have no "home." I mean I have a place I live and then I have my childhood home. But neither really feels like home.

I'm not sure what I expected when I arrived home. My bedroom no longer pays homage to my high school/college athlete days. The awards have been taken down. My pictures have been replaced. A new bedspread covers the bed that I used to sleep in. There is now a nice flat screen television on the shelves where my school books used to be (and seriously mom and dad? you wait until I leave to put a sweet tv in my room??) The drawers in my dresser are practically empty and my closet is now home to the overflow from my parent's closet. My bedroom is now an office/guest room.

It's not like I don't have a place to stay, and it's not like I don't feel welcome. It just doesn't feel like my home anymore. And don't get me wrong, I love going home and I love my parents. I guess part of me just thought when I moved out, time would kind of stand still at home. But, things keep going. My parents don't just sit around waiting for me to return. They have their own lives and I have mine. It's just weird getting older. And I'm sure most people deal with this detachment from home when they are younger than I am, more like when they graduate college or something. But, I loved living at home during law school.

When I moved in August I cried on my drive down here, leaving my home and my parents. And each time since then that I've been back to Toledo, I've teared up as I drive away. This time, though, I didn't. And the fact that I didn't get a little teared up made me sad! (I'm a nut...I know.)

And now it seems like that place just doesn't exist anymore. I guess I just miss living in a place where I feel like part of a family.