Home is where...(?)

You know, it's funny. I've always hated Oklahoma. Every time I've been here, I couldn't wait to leave. I wanted to go home, back to where I came from, back to my life. I loved my mom and dad, of course. Loved seeing them and spending a bit of time with them. But in the end, I was always relieved and happy to go back to my little niche in the world. So, now, as most of you know, I've been in Oklahoma again for almost a month. Same routine as when my mom died, I guess. Living out of a suitcase in a hospital, occasional nights in the rural mecca that is Cushing. Fulfilling my day job by taking care of the details and maintaining the festive atmosphere. Yet, for the first time, of all the time I've spent in this state, I don't feel the usual unbearable pressure to go home. I feel almost the same here as I did in Vegas, and really it's all the same. Same damn song, just a different damn tune. If anything, it's better here; because here I don't have to wade through the waters of memory that make up what remains of my marriage every hour of the blessed day.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but I think I know why I don't hate Oklahoma anymore. It's because I don't have a home anymore. I have a place where I live, live with people I love even, which makes me all the more lucksome. But it's not really my home. You see, home is where the heart is (quaint cliche alert goes haywire); and if your heart doesn't belong to anyone but you, then you don't belong anywhere either. If pain is lessened by it's division between partners and joy is doubled in it's sharing, then those who belong to no one find themselves at a loss in the sea of connections that tie this world together. I don't really belong here in Oklahoma any more than I really belong in Vegas. Dad has a new love in his life, so I find that I feel more like excessive baggage than usual. I know, I know. I have friends, I have family. And you are all wonderful people, and I love you dearly. But that doesn't change the fact that I am auxiliary to your lives. See, I used to be somebodys somebody. I used to be the center of someones world, and he used to be the center of mine. I guess a couple makes for a small family unit, but we were one anyway. So without a place to hang my heart, there is no place that holds meaning for me. At the end of the day, when you go home, you probably think of yourself going to a place, not to a person. But if that person were gone, would it still feel like home? And if home were just a place, just another suburban box with colored walls and cable TV and a couch, then you could never move, you could never rebuild.

I keep saying that I'll pick a new direction, that I'll make a new life once the world stops spinning. But the world doesn't stop spinning, does it? The world didn't stop turning just because my world came to an end. Everyone else still has their jobs to attend to, they have to head home at the end of the day. They have to talk to their parents and their significant others on the cell phone. If you are no one's significant other, does that render you insignificant? For months now, whenever I have a crying jag, I'll find myself sobbing that I want to go home. In my case, this is just another way of saying I want my husband, that I want to be with him, and asking God to make that happen in a more timely fashion. I have no home now, and I am unsure how to go about making a new one. If the concept of home is based on the premise of belonging, of being one of many, then how does a person create that alone? There must be a way; there are millions upon millions of single people in the world, and I'm sure they all mean it when they say they're headed home. What is the element that I seem to be missing here? Besides him, I mean.

When you were a kid and went to summer camp, did you get homesick? What did that mean exactly? Did you miss your room? The living room carpet? Running water? I bet what you really missed was your mom and dad, the dog... security... belonging. You didn't miss your home, you missed Home; the concept, the idea. Not the place. I think maybe that's what grieving is. Intensive homesickness, debilitating homesickness, terminal homesickness.

Of course, there is an upside to all this newfound personal freedom. Family, home, love, life... these things bind us to our circumstances, and often time one must sever ties if one is to change circumstance. So, the benefit to belonging to nowhere but yourself... I'm sorry, I mean to no one but yourself, is that you're free to wander where you would. An unfettered life is an unlimited one. I guess there are a lot of people in the world who wish for a bit more choice in their lives, choice to make bolder decisions, to not be burdened by their obligations to others. But my guess is that by that time those people finally let go of Home, they've already been gone for awhile. They may have been looking for a change of scenery for quite some time, so it doesn't hurt them to go looking for Home somewhere else. Kind of like relocating from Seattle to Miami. I guess that we're more like Katrina survivors trying to relocate. We survived the storm to find our Homes washed away. Now we're living in the FEMA trailer with our water-logged possessions trying to figure out where in the hell we're supposed to go now.

It's very important to grieving people to try to fill up the voids. We often try to go out and find new people to replace the roles of the person we've lost, or we try to find activities that make us happy or bring us meaning and purpose. Anything to stabilize our hearts, to find somewhere to say, this is where my heart is. This is where I belong. It's just our way of re-anchoring a ship that's been pulled off course by the ever-changing tides. I guess, mostly, I just hope that you folks that have a place where you are Home, realize what a gift that is. We all take things for granted I guess. But you have much to be grateful for. So live like it.