Well, sort of. Actually, I've been busy missing home - wondering where home really is, rather. There's a bad Motley Crue song in there somewhere, but I promise not to sing it and just get on to the point without resorting to leather pants or other hair metal accoutrement.*
*Just imagine a Grace Kelly lookalike with feathered 80s hair, though - this idea has legs (Aqua Net?).
I've been gone for a total of four years, but flying back to California still reminds me of seeing a (non-cretinous) ex again - for the span of a weekend, it can be deceptively easy to only see the lovely, pretty bits. Even the biggest clod or city can show promise for 48 hours, making it less simple to recall why it was you left in the first place. You were fine until you saw one another again, but oh, the first time back . . . and it doesn't help if home is the Geor*ge Clo*oney of cities. Throw in my friends that make my hometown, well, home, and it generally equals a long flight back to Texas to reflect on why the Anonymous Husband & I decided to make Texas home.
Am I (are we) happy in Austin, where I live now? Absolutely. It's a terrific city. Could I (we) be happy back home? Absolutely. It's a terrific city.
Can you call two places home? Or is home something that, geographically and spiritually, can only be in one place?
35 comments:
I used to live in Miami and could never really call it home. I love New York and really cannot picture living somewhere else. I am not one of those people who like change, grrr.. I know, stuck in my ways!! haha xxxoo
I think 'home' can definitly be two places! I say 'I haven't been home in X years' (two, for the record)--which is a clear reference to California--since clearly, I was 'home' at my house, just this morning.
Part of my heart will always be in California, and I miss my friends and family a lot, but, I'm finding that as the husband and I grow up and gorw into a family, we're also happy to have some distance between us and them.... Although, I really, really do miss the beach.
A whole lot.
Oh man, I identify with this about a dozen different ways. My current thinking has me calling about four different places home, none of which are Dallas (or helpful, for that matter).
That is a tough situation- I feel much the same way when visiting Atlanta where I lived before going back home. If only you could create a city that had all the qualities of home and your new home, including your friends and family. Sigh. However, then visiting would not be as fun, I suppose.
I live in NC now, but lived in New York state for a good part of my childhood. Twenty years later, I still call parts of NY home. It's where a lot of my family is still located, and I think you can call more than one place "home."
Sorry I've been away from the blog awhile. Looks like you have two beautiful homes. As a New Yorker I'm one of those people that has New York in my blood. I may move one day but I think I'll forever be a New Yorker.
Totally relate.
There is always going to be something that draws me to the East Coast. I still consider it "home," but I call Atlanta the same [although not for much longer]...and I don't know if once I leave I will long for ATL.
I still consider where I went to college home as well.
I call the East Coast my "family home." Atlanta is my "married home."
We'll see...we only have a few more months in ATL most likely...so it will be interesting if the next place feels any more like home. Atlanta has been fun, but I feel like I have been on a long vacation. I think it is because I never planned to stay here that long.
Welcome back sister! In honor of your return you won the Kathy Hawkins Principal Award. You must be thrilled! Check it out!
I think you can. My husband does. He loves Baton Rouge, but just doesn't want to move back. We just really enjoy visiting. And, here in Texas we love where we live.
People move a lot. I actually have no immediate family members left in the town where I grew up for 18 years. To see any but one of them means either a ridiculous car ride or pricey flight. Oh well, home happens when we all get together. Home happens at my new house with the fiancé, too. Home isn’t so much a place as it is a happening. Home is basically a traveling party (Do you have champagne? It’s a party! Do you have a comfy, familiar person? It’s home!).
Absolutely, maybe even more than two places. People move for work and other reasons so often it seems. I want to find my US dream home NOW, but I think I'm far too young to just assume I will never have to move again for a promotion or different job. I've put soooo much love and work into my current home that I said my next one will be permanent (and I may be moving next year, so..... ;-)
I think as we bop about throughout life, we have lots of homes. For instance, I miss college b/c that's where Ben and I met and shared our courtship, and every time we go to Baylor I get all misty and nostalgic. But I enjoy my life now, and I'll enjoy whereever we go.
And my mom treated me to a shopping spree this weekend, so I'll actually look Fashionable when we meet!
You can definitely have more than one home. Having said that I have moved more times than I would like to count. I still think of London as home and could move back there if push came to shove. It is wherever you feel comfortable in your own skin.
This topic is actually what my whole blog is dedicated to...how to find "home". But I think you can call both places home. I like the way you put it, "you were fine until you saw each other again..." I think that says it all right there! You don't realize you miss the place you used to call home until you go back.
HI! I tooking a long break from blogging and missed you so! Anyway, so interesting that you wrote this because I just got back from visiting Atlanta over the weekend--and for the first time I realized that I miss it there. Don't get me wrong, I love NYC...but I love Atlanta and the South too. I miss my family the most of all, but I am also a little down about it because I'm beginning to think that I may never get the chance to live there again. Just the way my life seems to be shaping up, but who knows. Either way, I totally get where you are coming from. hugs!
I think there are two hones for everyone: where you grew up and where you currently live. If you've never moved, I still think that your parents home could be considered your own. I'm so glad you had a nice visit!
Home to me definitely isn't Chicago, even though I've lived here for 8 years. For me, home will always be "up north" in Michigan. It's where my family is (except for my hubby- he's here with me). Maybe it's b/c we don't have a house or our own family yet that I feel unsettled here still. We'll see how things shape up in the future and if I ever change my mind about being "home."
In all honestly, I've only lived 35 minutes away from my true home. I was there for seven years, but I honestly spent about five of those years doing everything I could to find my way 35 minutes back to my hometown, which I happily returned to 10 years ago. Perhaps that shows a lack of an explorer's heart or spirit. I don't know. What I do know is I've never felt like any other place truly could be home.
You are twice blessed if you can feel so at home in two different places. It's lovely!
I was born and raised in Houston and it doesn't feel home to me even now (don't get me wrong...I love my friends/family here). So I would consider you lucky to have 2 hometowns.
Home is where the heart is and where the heart has lived. Part of my heart is in San Francisco, most of it is on the beaches of southeast Virginia, and some of it is in Tulsa. I'm leaving the rest open for wherever residency and fellowships end up taking me. (which I'm not too secretly hoping is back to the southeast!)
Of course you can call more than one place home! Its just like you have divorced homelands that can't get along at all so you have to visit them both at separate times.
Okay, I'm rambling. Sorry!
This is a tough one and I prob don't have proper perspective. I've lived in Memphis, Athens, GA (3 semesters), Oxford, MS (2.5 years). So Memphis is definitely home for me and the others are "college towns". Often times I get a bit sad and regretful that I didn't go away some place else and try and make a new home. But then a part of me loves that I've lived in the same place my family has for generations and I know it and all its quirks in and out. I feel like I could never know another city like I know Memphis and for some reason that makes me never want to leave.
Yes, I miss HOME....however I do love the South...big Fan :)
The more places you can call home the better! Can I call St. Marten home? Cabo?
I think you can have more than one home. Not to channel that Natalie Portman movie, but home is where the heart is. I have many homes in a few states and it's not about the cities, but about what makes them so special to me.
I am from Seattle and live on the opposite coast...I call both places home.
Welcome back!
I struggle with my desire to be back in DC and to stay where my fam is in Tampa. Sigh. We missed you!
We're glad you were able to get away Miss Pretty, and take some time at home.
Yes, yes, yes on more than one 'Home,' absolutely yes on the possibility of one feeling they have been in more than one place they can call home. After 17 years in Denver that is still very much home despite having lived in several other places. And now that we are "back home" and near both of our families, this is clearly one such place as well.
Sending you a smile and a hug,
tp
This is going to be cheesy, but home really is where the heart is and it sounds like your heart is in two places :)
I live in Nashville but am from the DC area (MD side). I always say I want to go home...then I get there and well want to go home. "HOME" seems to be where ever I am...or am not...depending on the day and my mood!
Home to me will always be California, it was where I was born and where I first became aware of myself, and yet here (North Carolina) is where I have spent my adult life - so it is home now too. It is funny to me, I will always consider myself a California Girl and yet I have a Sweet Southern Girl for a daughter....
I have been married five years, and even though I only moved four hours away I still say I'm going "home" when I go to visit family, I don't think you ever quit calling it that. When I'm leaving town and going home people know what I'm talking about.
God, sweetie - you totally hit home with this post. Honestly, the only thing keeping me in Texas (and Austin specifically) is my husband. But then I wander back home to the NJ/NY area and don't feel at home there either. I guess I have the opposite problem of you - LOL!
I can relate to this post in EVERY way! Right down to the fact that my husband is about to transplant us from San Diego to Austin.
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