Home Sweet Home?

So I hope you all had a good Father's Day weekend! The weather is finally becoming nice here .. its about time!!

I spent this weekend in the town I graduated from high school. I think most would classify that as their hometown but, it's just never ever felt like home to me. In fact, it feels more like the worst place on earth to me. From the moment we moved to the day I left, it was never "home" it was simply the place my parents lived. Yet, on the street, people smile and say "Home visiting for the weekend are you?" and I just reply, "Yup, just seeing my parents." Or, I answer their phone and the caller says, "Oh, home for summer are you?" and I always say, "Nope, just visiting Mom and Dad for a day or two." I purposely don't use the word "home". I cannot bring myself to call this place, this house I lived in for 11 years, home. It's not my home. It's my parents' home, it's my brother's home, heck, it's my dog's home. But it's not my home.

Life in this town was not happy for me. I was never quite "one of the gang". Oh sure I had friends, but I had very few (if any!) girl friends and I mostly just hung out with the boys. I was or at least I always felt, like I was just a bit on the edge, not quite belonging. Sure I partied and dated and had some fabulous times, but I always felt just a little bit left out.

In the winter the rain brought me down. A Cariboo girl like myself needs snow and cold and winter sunshine. This town offers months (yes, months) where the sun literally doesn't touch the ground (from November to mid February). There are months of non-stop rain and suffocating low clouds. The gorgeous mountains become evil gatekeepers and you are trapped; trapped under the grey clouds, in the mood-busting rain by the huge, intimidating mountains. By the end of every winter, I was itching to run, antsy to leave and on the first sunny weekend I would hop in my car and drive the Canyon. In the summer I always fled to the town that is my true hometown. I fled to the Cariboo where I felt at home, happy and at peace. To this day the Cariboo soothes me in a way nothing else can. I still cry bitterly as J and I leave the cabin and goodness, I'm 21!

For some reason the moment I arrive in this town, I become that 15 year old girl again. The one that feels worthless, ugly, undesirable and worst of all, like life is not worth living. It's not that I don't have bad days elsewhere, I do, it's just that every day in this town is a bad day for me. I dread having to leave the house, I'm uncomfortable running into people, I just want to crawl into bed and hide away. I can't explain it. It just happens. Even when I tell myself and promise myself that this time will be different, that this time I'm okay and I'm 21 and I haven't lived there for four years, and it's just a visit .. and every time, it's awful. It hits me like a Mack truck. Bowls me over and crushes me until I cannot breathe. I count the hours until I can leave again. And as we hit the highway on our way home, I promise that I'll never be back.

As soon as high school was over, I started my search for places to live in my new college town. I moved August 1st, over a month before college even began. But I was done, I was gone, I was running away. I still remember that drive out of town, 5am, 17 years old and gleeful. I turned the music up and sang all the way there. When I arrived, I pulled into my new parking space, walked to my townhouse, put the key in the lock and I felt this immediate sense of home. Throughout college I never said "Oh I'm going home for the weekend." I really felt that I was home and that visiting my parents was really just visiting.

I must say, this town hasn't been all bad to me. I spent my teenage years here, young and carefree. I met J here, and I am forever grateful for that. I have met some of the most amazing people and been on trips and adventures of a lifetime because of this town. I learned the real meaning of community here and saw that it really does take a village to raise a child. Everywhere I go, I am recognized and greeted warmly. The whole town seems to take pride in your life's accomplishments. Everyone is there to help, offer advice and simply wish you well. And yet, I still don't feel at home here.

It's Monday and I've been here since Thursday night. I cannot wait to get home. To me home is wherever I share a house with J and Joe and Kirb. More and more the three of them become my immediate family. It doesn't matter that I don't want to live in the city and we live in the city. I feel more home in our little 2 bedroom, 3rd storey, busy city apartment, than I do in the house my parents own and live in, and I lived in for 11 years. Wow eh. Every place J and I have shared was immediately home to me. From the moment we moved in, to the moment we moved out, it was absolutely, positively my home.

Well, I have to run. I'm almost on my way home!!!

~ C