I feel like I've written this entry before...
Anyway, I'm at my parent's house right now. I've been here since Wednesday night. It was a nice trip home - I ate lots of food and saw my friends and got to be around my family. I even got to relax just a little bit. It was good.
But being at home always breaks my heart in just a very special way. This is particularly true this time. This is the first time I've been home since we've had a bit of trauma in the family. It was bad stuff, and not petty family shit in any way. This was Serious Business. Things are going well, and they're going to be OK. I know this is all terribly cryptic, but it's not my business to be going into - no matter how private this journal is and no matter how much I love you all. But it was good to be home, and be with the people I love, since I've been missing them a lot.
Home breaks my heart in more than just that Serious Business mentioned above. First, sometimes it scares me how old my grandmothter looks, and my parents too. Don't get me wrong - everyone is in good health and doing well. More and more, their mortality just smacks me in the face. My mom has this habit of sneaking me a bit of cash when I come home. And anymore I think "Don't do this. You might NEED this money." I mean, she's not giving me serious cash (re: in the thousands of dollars or anything). And my parents are doing well right now - as good as they've ever done. But it's just the IDEA of it. My parents moved in the last couple of years, and they're paying off a house and putting my sister through college .... They don't need to be worrying about my cab rides or whatever. They need to be saving for the house and retirement and shit. Oy vey.
Even this place - Home - it just gives me weird vibes. The Quad Cities are technically a "metro" area - we have movie theaters, malls, and things like that. But, let's put it this way, there are a lot of bad haircuts and pick up trucks too. Catch my drift? I'm not an elitist. Or, at least, I don't think I'm one - and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be one. But I'm just not sure I could live here anymore. It's just too rural. I've lived in a college town and the big city now. I've travelled here and there. I'm not sure this place could do it for me anymore - not sure there's a music store or a book store that could quite meet my needs right?
Even my friends ... I love them all. But, they all have regular jobs and house and babies. They don't care about probit models or faulty causalty or tight theories. I adore them, but I feel like my life and my work is so different. I find it harder to relate to the people I used to know inside and out. I know that's just life. And we still have a great time, and we're going to be friends for a long time .... But just facing up that change is hard. And it's hard when I go back to Chicago, and have lunch with my "grad school" friends, and launch into discussions of determinism and most differnet/similar outcome research designs and never even think about pausing to define those terms....I just feel different, and I feel like it's me that's doing all the changing. (And *that* sounds like some arrogant bullshit. But I don't meet it in that way. I mean it in an "Boy, I sure am an uppity prick" kind of way.)
BUT - but .... I really want to be here still. I just wanna come home, I think. I love being with my family, eating with them and laughing and gossiping and just hanging out and helping out. I worry about them. I miss them. I always get sad when I have to go home - all nostalgic and guilty that I ever left, and worried that when I do come home that I'm still not attentive enough. (That's the Catholic in me, fo'sure.) But it's real and sincere too. I want to be here for my family. I want my kids to grow up with their grandparents around, just like I did. But my career and my preferences keep me away. And it's not clear when the two shall meet again.
Blah. I love coming home, but all it does is make me sick.
Anyway, I'm at my parent's house right now. I've been here since Wednesday night. It was a nice trip home - I ate lots of food and saw my friends and got to be around my family. I even got to relax just a little bit. It was good.
But being at home always breaks my heart in just a very special way. This is particularly true this time. This is the first time I've been home since we've had a bit of trauma in the family. It was bad stuff, and not petty family shit in any way. This was Serious Business. Things are going well, and they're going to be OK. I know this is all terribly cryptic, but it's not my business to be going into - no matter how private this journal is and no matter how much I love you all. But it was good to be home, and be with the people I love, since I've been missing them a lot.
Home breaks my heart in more than just that Serious Business mentioned above. First, sometimes it scares me how old my grandmothter looks, and my parents too. Don't get me wrong - everyone is in good health and doing well. More and more, their mortality just smacks me in the face. My mom has this habit of sneaking me a bit of cash when I come home. And anymore I think "Don't do this. You might NEED this money." I mean, she's not giving me serious cash (re: in the thousands of dollars or anything). And my parents are doing well right now - as good as they've ever done. But it's just the IDEA of it. My parents moved in the last couple of years, and they're paying off a house and putting my sister through college .... They don't need to be worrying about my cab rides or whatever. They need to be saving for the house and retirement and shit. Oy vey.
Even this place - Home - it just gives me weird vibes. The Quad Cities are technically a "metro" area - we have movie theaters, malls, and things like that. But, let's put it this way, there are a lot of bad haircuts and pick up trucks too. Catch my drift? I'm not an elitist. Or, at least, I don't think I'm one - and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be one. But I'm just not sure I could live here anymore. It's just too rural. I've lived in a college town and the big city now. I've travelled here and there. I'm not sure this place could do it for me anymore - not sure there's a music store or a book store that could quite meet my needs right?
Even my friends ... I love them all. But, they all have regular jobs and house and babies. They don't care about probit models or faulty causalty or tight theories. I adore them, but I feel like my life and my work is so different. I find it harder to relate to the people I used to know inside and out. I know that's just life. And we still have a great time, and we're going to be friends for a long time .... But just facing up that change is hard. And it's hard when I go back to Chicago, and have lunch with my "grad school" friends, and launch into discussions of determinism and most differnet/similar outcome research designs and never even think about pausing to define those terms....I just feel different, and I feel like it's me that's doing all the changing. (And *that* sounds like some arrogant bullshit. But I don't meet it in that way. I mean it in an "Boy, I sure am an uppity prick" kind of way.)
BUT - but .... I really want to be here still. I just wanna come home, I think. I love being with my family, eating with them and laughing and gossiping and just hanging out and helping out. I worry about them. I miss them. I always get sad when I have to go home - all nostalgic and guilty that I ever left, and worried that when I do come home that I'm still not attentive enough. (That's the Catholic in me, fo'sure.) But it's real and sincere too. I want to be here for my family. I want my kids to grow up with their grandparents around, just like I did. But my career and my preferences keep me away. And it's not clear when the two shall meet again.
Blah. I love coming home, but all it does is make me sick.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
bredoteau:
Sunday was absolute craziness (and I was out driving in it), but today hasn't been so bad in my area. I actually was out running just a little while ago.
toothpickmoe:
That makes sense. It's hard to project, over time, how a neighborhood will pan out. Mine has certainly gotten much nicer since I moved here, but it would've been hard to believe that back in '99.