A Ghost in My Own Home

A wave of nostalgia has consumed me this week. I have been trying to get back into work mode after a short trip home to see my cousin get married, visit family I haven’t seen since Christmas and spend some time with one of my best friends…all in a matter of just two and a half days.

Before driving up to Virginia, my flight was bringing me into Charlotte and mom had breakfast waiting for me at home so I could see our dogs and grab some things from my old room. I wasn’t sure how home would feel-would it smell the same? Would I find my coffee cups still stacked neatly inside of our cabinets? The concept of “home” has been really hard for me to grasp these past few months. I have moved a lot of my things out here to California, but left behind the skeleton of my old room that still sits at my parents house as if I just decided to run away one day. My old bed, dresser and shelves are all there; some clothes still litter the closet along with boxes of things that I had packed away for when the time came to get my own place.

As I looked at these boxes and the things that I left behind, I felt apprehensive and a bit removed. I thought I had taken my whole self to California, ready for a new start and a new home…but at that moment, I felt as if I were split in two. Since I have moved out here, a lot of people have asked me if I was ever going to come home or what I planned on doing after my short and only temporary internship. At this point in my life, its almost impossible to tell…and it's been hard to live in the moment when I’m constantly reminded of where my past lies and where I need to go in the future.

I read a passage the other night that has resonated deep within me and inspired me to write today:

“All it takes is the decision to walk with some awareness, both of who you are and what you are doing. Where you are going is not as important, however counter-intuitive that may seem. To detach the walking from the destination is in fact one of the best ways to recognize the altars you are passing right by all the time. Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are. When someone asks us where we want to be in our lives, the last thing that occurs to us is to look down at our feet and say, “Here, I guess, Since this is where I am.”- An Altar in the World

When I decided to move out here, I knew that I was putting the plans I had to have my own home on hold. I was so comfortable and felt safe in the environment I grew up in but that was not satisfying my need to experience more. To take a walk. To be on my own and realize what being away from “home” really meant.

I don’t know where I am going, but the path I have created so far has paved the way to so many new directions I can go. No matter where I end up creating a life of my own, I will always have a home I know I can come back to, and being away from it makes me appreciate all that it has given me even more.