Going Home

It’s probably my 10th time coming home since going away to college. I’m on the plane flying towards the freezing tundra of Wisconsin and I can honestly say I’m really excited to rest and be with family. I didn’t always feel like that.

The first Christmas break home from college was difficult, and I didn’t know how to feel about that at the time. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in college, it’s that retrospect is one of the strongest sources of clarity.

Home is familiar. It’s safe and comfortable, and it is the environment in which all parts of me have existed for the longest period of time.

This is a beautiful and a terrible thing.

My freshman year of college, I remember being excited because I was going home. That’s a good thing when you’re lucky enough to come from a family that loves you. But the excitement was mixed with something else that I couldn’t quite explain, and that is what made me anxious: my inability to define how I felt about going home.

Going back to the place where I had just spent four months healing from things that had happened there was an incredibly disorienting thing. It was a cosmic clash between the person I was trying to become and the person I used to be. Like oil and water, it couldn’t exist together.

I couldn’t exist together.

I spiraled, thinking, is it going to be like this every time I come home for the rest of my life?

Of course it wasn’t all like that. There were sweet parts, too. The first hug after months apart and cuddles with my quirky dog and sleeping in my old bed. Home cooked meals were nice, and conversations at the dinner table picked up right where I left off. The best part about being home: I didn’t need to take care of myself anymore.  

It’s almost like I never left.

Everything is the same. Suddenly I worry if I’ve actually changed for the better, or if it’s all an illusion, and I feel myself sliding backwards, but all the footholds are on the other side of the country.

The worst part about being home: I don’t need to take care of myself anymore.

There’s this phrase that is mostly applied to breakups and deaths and other forms of trauma, but I’ve found it also applies to this phenomenon: time heals.

Or maybe the better explanation is, repetition heals.

This is the 10th time coming home, I think, my third Christmas break away from college. This is what I’ve learned.

Each time I go home, the cosmic clash is a little less cosmic. Something I used to think would never exist together slowly, over time, start to merge.

There are a lot of parts of my old self I don’t like, parts I’ve had to forgive, parts I’ve let go. Letting these two selves merge doesn’t mean I’m undoing the healing, if anything, it’s the culmination of it. I’m finally giving myself the grace to let these parts of me exist together. It’s shocking, but a little less shocking each time.

Being able to let myself exist together isn’t like perfectly fitting together two pieces of a puzzle. It’s like dumping out all the pieces on the dining table and letting them sit like that for a while. Not having to finish it right away, knowing it’s a task to chip away at over time.

So, for now, I’m able to go into the living room, sit on the couch, and do nothing with my family for a while.