Home is Where the Heart is
I’ve had several conversations with my dad lately about how weird it is for me trying to find my place between kid and adult.
I had a sort of out-of-body experience on June 9 when I was on my knees in the school cafeteria conducting my troup of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders in the graduation song for the 5th graders. The parents were behind me in rows of folding chairs, and I had a flashback to my graduation where my music teacher was conducting us. My dad said he would need a video of me teaching in order to believe it. I’m not his little girl anymore. I no longer need to sit on his lap nightly for him to untangle my long mane of curly hair.
Michael has teased me before for still calling my parents’ house “home.” I don’t live there anymore, but I haven’t established stronger roots anywhere else.
I’ve heard the expression “home is where the heart is.” I guess that means I have a lot of homes. With my parents in Greensboro. With my grandparents in Winston. With the Yungebergs in Chapel Hill. With my girlfriends. With Robin.
I recently re-watched Garden State and Zach Braff has another idea about home in the way that it concerns the definition of family. “Maybe that’s all family really is–a group of people that miss the same imaginary place.”
In that sense, I also have lots of families. Maybe Michael’s pretty smart for calling his cherished people “framily”–that is, friends + family. My girlfriends and I miss Spencer. Not necessarily the physical dorm, but rather the imaginary bond it created between us.
All of my wonderful imaginary places are still in the past for me. Maybe you know you’re an adult when the imaginary place you and your framily miss is the place where you currently live.
08/13/2008 at 1:01 pm
I have lots of places I currently call home, like you. Home is Alexandria, but I will always be rubber banded to Blacksburg. Home is also Austin, but it’s only beginning to feel that way.
The odd thing about Blacksburg is that so few of my close people are there anymore. My sister is, of course, but I see her just as often in Alexandria. But I was back in Blacksburg last week, and it was the oddest thing. In three days I ran into ten people I knew. Just *knowing* people, even if they’re not incredibly close to you…this is another component, perhaps, to framily/home.
I like this word, framily. I will use it, if that’s okay?
I like the idea of an urban clan. Or maybe a suburban clan…homesteaders, I think the word is for rural areas.
12/04/2008 at 12:59 pm
You know, there are moments when I still feel that I’m trying to figure out my place in adult life. Although, I will say that I’m definitely past the hardest parts of that puzzle. Perhaps it’s a lifelong process to refine the loose ends.
I like to say that home is anywhere I can take my shoes off. (With obvious exclusions, like swimming pools and whatnot. But maybe even there!) The idea is that for me, home is about comfort.