You can't go home again

Such a simple quote, really. It's hard to believe that a string of five very common words could become so commonplace a statement, so powerful a truth, as to be attributed to someone. Home. For most of us, the concept refers not to just one's present domicile but also one's home of the past, one's place of growing up, of developing, of seeking and finding, of reaching the age of (accountability, reckoning, Aquarius -- pick one). It's a place for which we hold unanswered yearnings, often hidden deep in our core until triggered by a memory or emotion. Then there is me, for whom the idea of home is connected only with the house in which I now live with my husband and daughter. Home is a foreign concept, an alien land, an imaginary realm that exists somewhere between the covers of the books that hold the chapters of other people's lives, not my own. It is (mostly) no fault of mine that I do not have a place called home, nestling deep within my past, to which my mind can run when I am tired, sad, frustrated, sick, or when I am asked that question that threatens to demolish the foundations of my mental faculties and turns me -- typically wordy and of careful elocution -- into a stuttering, stammering mound of d’oh: “Where are you from?”

My family (mom, dad, me) was quite mobile when I was growing up. I moved with my family when I was 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 11 (yes, twice), 14, and 14 (see note for 11). Talk about always being the outsider at school… I moved on my own (more or less, counting to/from various colleges) at ages 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24 (to get married), 27, 32 and 33. These moves were between two different states (three, if you count a short stint at UNC at age 17-18) and several different towns within the northern regions of those states. I would hope, therefore, that one could see why the otherwise-innocuous inquiry of, “Where are you from?” strikes fear in my heart.

Which leads me to…Yesterday. I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a birthday celebration for my very favoritest uncle in the whole world, who is turning 70 on July 31. This was held at his church, which is in an area near where we lived during some of those tumultuous moving years of my youth. His wife is a teacher and had some friends from school there helping out. One lady, in particular, kept catching my eye and I figured out that I had gone to school with her in 4^th through 7^th grades. We were not really great friends at the time. This was a very tiny school in the country – there was one 4^th, one 5^th, and one 6^th grade, so we were all together for 3 whole years. M. and I both liked the same boy all those years (yes, he was one of THOSE Adonis-like males who, even at 10 years old, could turn a roomful of 5^th-grade girls into a snarling, sniveling, taunting heap of hair pullers). I was really happy to see this lady, M., and re-introduced myself to her. I was ready for a “How exciting, imagine seeing you for the first time since 1978, let’s sit down, catch up on things, how are you, what are you doing, my your daughter is beautiful” (yes, she really is) sort of exchange. What I got was…cool. ???? Cordial, yes, but cool. I am not in touch with very many people (one hand’s worth of fingers) from my growing-up years at six different schools in two states, so I relish the few random opportunities I get to connect with those “lost” years. This was a blow to me and yet another reminder… you can’t go home again.

One thing I can do, though, is put on my rose-colored glasses as well as the next girl, thank you very much, so I decided that M. still harbors some ill will against me that could only result from her thinking, then AND now, that I was a more likely recipient of the affections of Adonis than she was (he did, after all, kiss ME at that party, not her that I’m aware of). So, how do you like THEM apples? Turns out, Adonis doesn’t like apples at all. I saw him a few years ago at an Elton John concert…with a guy.

My hope for today:

“God makes a home for the lonely.” – Psalm 68:6

“In My Father’s house are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you.” – John 14:2