Back Home from Being Back Home

Last week I traveled home for my cousin's wedding. She and I graduated from the same high school and the same class. We've always shared a lot of the same personality and though we aren't excellent at keeping in touch, it's always like no time has passed when we're around one another. Kathryn is always laughing and it's somewhat contagious. I felt so happy and a sense of pride filled me when I watched her marry a man who shares her wit and seems to have the same kind soul. Most importantly someone who loves her so much. I was envious of their shared laughter, we all want that.



I was honored to have been included in the wedding party (go Team Usher!), especially since I've only met her new husband on one other occasion. Kathryn, to me, has always felt like a friend I wished I was closer to. One that, every time you finish spending time with, you think "why DON'T we do this more often!?"



I changed her last name in my phone today when I was updating my address book. It felt so weird to change her name, almost like I might not be able to find her now under her new alphabetical location. Sort of the way I still instinctively open the top drawer of my dresser to find socks 5 months after I rearranged them to the 2nd drawer. New category, new location. Socks can't always stay in the same place.

I feel like I put my name in a new metaphorical location after this trip, too. I don't feel categorized under San Antonio, Texas any longer. I've always felt so happy to be AT home when I go, and sad to leave. When I get back to Chicago I feel happy to be here as well but sort of torn between two places to call "home."



I stepped out of the airport and waited for my ride once I got back to O'hare last week and, after almost exactly four years of living here, had what I call a "deep breath moment." Not a bad sigh, not a scared hesitation, just a "this is it.." I knew that though I've called this place home for several years, it's the Mason show here. This is where I've established my life and my career. I'm not playing house with this life. That 'new car smell' of a post-college life has worn off. It is a lot like a new car, actually. At first moving about life in an unfamiliar way, not sure how easily you can round corners or fit into certain spaces. Can I clear this obstacle? Will I make it under this barrier? How much power am I really dealing with? And then without noticing exactly when it changed you feel like one with your car.. or life in this case. Going home is my rental vehicle now. It's the temporary borrowed life that I'm not used to and settling back into my routines in Chicago are the familiar. Like a car I've had for a while my depth perception with my own life has become instinctual. I know where all the controls are, how fast I have to go to pass someone else and just how far I can go without running out of gas. When I round a tight corner, I know just how close I can come without scraping myself up.

There's always something difficult and comfortable at the same time about going "back home." Lauren said something profound to me last week when I was talking to her on the phone from Texas. She said: "I feel like when you're home you're made to feel like or convince yourself it's not okay to be you and I don't like that, because there's nothing wrong with you" (pardon the potential misquote if I didn't get it just right). She's correct and it's probably because my identity isn't tied up in being there any longer. And that's where the deep breath moment comes in. A realization that it's just me out here. It's hard to close an old chapter, but this was the first time I didn't feel necessarily sad to put it behind me when I left.

And at the end of this trip, I felt very comfortable pulling back into my spot here in Chicago. I could drive it with my eyes closed.. I am back home.

Mdb