Take me home, (nothing that approximates) country roads
A few mornings ago, I was walking along the downtown mall with my cup of coffee, when two people on opposite sides of the mall a little ways ahead of me came running toward each other. I could tell that they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. When they met in the center, they laughed and embraced; I didn’t hear their words but their voices were high and happy as they spoke excitedly. And all at once I was knocked on my ass by a wave of homesickness.
When I was in graduate school I would mark my calendar carefully, noting how many days it would be between visits from my then-boyfriend or my visits home, and I was careful not to let more time go by between visits than had ever gone by before. If the longest I had ever been away was 10 weeks, I would ensure that I wouldn’t spend more than another 10 weeks away before another I made the trip up to Connecticut again, or had someone come down to see me. It was as though I knew I could survive 10 weeks, but 10 weeks and one day might be more than I could bear. I knew it was silly, but I cautiously marked time just the same.
These days, I feel much more settled. I’m happily employed, I have friends for all occasions and running partners, and clubs, and a fabulous boyfriend minutes away. But there’s always a nagging feeling that I’m missing something, or I’m about to miss something, and that there are things I’m missing that I don’t even know about. My grandmother is ill, but no one thinks to update me when she’s admitted to the hospital. I’m in a dear friend’s wedding this summer, and have been painfully, embarrassingly uninvolved; she had two bridal showers and I was unable to make it to either one. I’ve missed slews of birthdays, parties, and get-togethers in CT, though, of course, I’ve been happily able to participate in these things down here in VA. And if I moved away, I know I’d miss this state like crazy.
When I’m in Virginia, I call Connecticut home, when in Connecticut, I refer to Virginia as home. Some days this makes me feel very lucky, this equal comfort with—and love for—two places. But now and then it occurs to me that this really means I’m always referring to home as the place where I’m not. Sometimes I wonder if this is just a stubborn refusal to be happy no matter where I am.
Still, I always feel a little silly complaining. I’m certainly not the first person to move away home, and people have moved much further away, and under much more painful circumstances. And let’s not forget about the men and women serving overseas, and the people who they’ve left behind.
And so, with that in mind, I will be even more thankful as I head up to Connecticut for a visit this weekend. I really can’t wait.