Between the 17's

            The four years I have spent in college have been some of the most disorienting of my life. It’s like you go from having a place to call home to not really knowing where home is while simultaneously trying to figure out what home even means. You see, I wasn’t one of those kids who moved around a lot. The biggest move my family ever made was one street over. I’m also not a child of divorce so I never had to split my living between two houses. I’ve always lived in Middlebury, Connecticut, a small town without small town charm. Exit 17 off of I-84. But then I went to college and I moved away from all I’d ever known as home. I didn’t go far, though, ending up on the North Shore of Massachusetts only three hours away. I knew staying local was out of the question long before college applications were even due, but I never wanted to be more than a days driving distance, either. So I drove 84 to the Mass Pike, to 95 to 128, and took exit 17 towards Wenham. Ever since move in day home has been split between the 17’s.

            I’ve never been one to leave home for too long. For a while the longest I’d ever spent from my house was two weeks on a family vacation. As a kid I was the one who couldn’t make it through a sleep over at my cousins house without calling my parents to come pick me up. Even though I’m reluctant to admit it, I guess I’m kind of a homebody. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a homebody, but there’s a uniquely desirable quality to be independent, free to travel and roam the fringes of this world without fear. But that’s just not totally me. I’m rooted in places where familiarity breeds comfort. But when it came time to go to off to college I was faced with a prolonged separation from the only place I’d ever called home.

            After almost two months at school we had our first break, just a long weekend mid-semester, and I was going home for the first time in the longest time. I was so excited to go back, to see my family, to sleep in my own bed in my own room, to shower without shoes on, to smell coffee in the morning and autumn at night. I was returning. But when I got home it felt so foreign. When I opened the door to my room and stepped inside it felt still. The air felt locked into place as if the particles hadn’t moved since I last touched them in August. And it was silent, as if sound was suspended just before reaching my ears. It was like stepping inside a picture I’d taken of my room, like I couldn’t change the arrangement of objects or really exist at all.

            I’ve gone longer than two months without being in room since that day, but it’s never felt as strange as the first time. It’s never felt so uninhabited the way it did that day in October of 2011. I can’t figure it out, but it’s as if I’ve gotten used to the stillness of my infrequently visited childhood bedroom.

           

            Normally when you live out of suitcase you’re on vacation, at a friend’s house, camping in the woods, not sleeping in your own room in your own house. It’s the most backwards thing, packing up your clothes to go home. It’s even weirder when instead of rummaging through a crowded drawer for you favorite T-shirt, you pick the only one you have to chose from out of a small suitcase that’s sitting on the floor in the middle of your room. Home is your clothes in their place, not in a bag, not wrinkled from packing, and not smelling of vinyl and must. But when home is more than one place, your things become frequent residents of the black suitcases, the overnight bags, the backpacks, wedged tightly between rolls of socks and toiletries.

            I remember the first time I lived out of a suitcase in my own home, it was so uncomfortable that I decided to go through the work of unpacking my minimal belongings and putting them in their respective places, my jeans back on the empty shelf where my pants used to go, and my shirts in my shirt drawer, only half filled with a bunch of tops I don’t wear. As I was unpacking I could already see my future self packing my things right back up, so what was I even doing? Looking back I guess I was trying to gain a little traction, find some semblance of normalcy in an otherwise abnormal situation.

             I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve come home from school and asked if something’s new only to be told it’s not. It’s like every time I come home I notice some small change my parent’s made while I was gone. One time they changed an outlet in our kitchen. You might not think I’d notice something so little, but I did. I noticed because I had to struggle to plug in my phone charger where it used to be almost loose in the outlet.  I asked, “is this new?” and my mom responded, “no, we changed that a while ago.” When I was younger I was home to see the new things come and the old things go. I was around for my opinion of things to be asked, and my responses to be heard. But now I wasn’t a part of the decision, I wasn’t part of the process I was just a recipient. It’s not that I thought life for my parents stopped when I wasn’t home, but it’s like trying to see what’s behind you. You can imagine what’s there because you’ve seen it before, but you can’t actually see it. Being away from home doesn’t mean life stops, my parents move the furniture, and buy groceries, and hang artwork, and just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not going on. Once I was on the phone with my mom and she was telling me what her and my dad were up to that day or weekend or whatever. I must’ve said something along the lines of “wow you and dad are busy,” because she responded by saying, “yeah, Cal, life goes on here while you’re at school you know.” I don’t expect to be the lynch pin on which my family turns, but it’s discomforting to know how much you miss while your back is turned.

            During my second to last semester of college I came home for break, maybe Thanksgiving. The last few miles of the drive were almost unbearable. I’ve never been a fan of the three-hour drive back and forth between home and school, but this was probably one of the worst. I sped down roads that should be handled with caution, and I rolled through nearly every stop sign. My legs bounced in rhythm with my beating heart and my head throbbed from singing far too loud for far too long. I couldn’t wait to get to my house. I couldn’t wait to be home. I needed a refuge from an otherwise stressful semester of strained friendships. When I finally got home I burst through the door. My mom was in the kitchen, turned to me and said, “welcome home,” with that familiar love in her eyes and voice. I ran to her, letting my body fall into the embrace. I sobbed. I cried until I couldn’t cry, and even then my breath was heavy and quick, soaked with snot. My dad didn’t really get it, but he hugged my mom and me anyways for a long time, and my mom cried, too.

            There have been quite a few times I’ve left home to come back to school and cried. A lot of times I tried to hide it behind dark tinted sunglasses, a lot times I tried to bury my face into my dogs while kissing them goodbye. One time I even got in my car and left without saying goodbye because I couldn’t even muster the courage to face my mom and dad and say the word. But there haven’t been many times I’ve cried just getting home. It’s weird, you’d think the coming and going, the constant moving in and out, the leaving of places would become easier the more you did it. That after enough times you’d be numbed to the pain of it. But not for me. For me it got almost progressively worse. Leaving home to go back to school never got easier; at best it stayed the same. It’s funny though, because as hard as it was to leave home, it was just as hard to leave school, because in a way, I’d made a home for myself there, too.

            I read a quote once, it says, “It’s a funny thing, coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you.” I think that’s true. Yes, things do change, clearly, but the essence of life at home doesn’t. But in some way it feels new, it feels like you’re a foreigner in your own life. But home is still home and it’s still there, each and every time I go back I remember that. But while I’ve been gone I’ve been forced to create a new home, take the place I’ve been put and make it into a home of my own. One where my friends are my family and dinner is served at 5:00pm and my dining room seats 500. I’ve built a home, away from home, but I’ve still got my home to go back to. But I’m starting to realize that that’s what life is. It’s the building of homes; little ones, fleeting ones, forever ones. I’m beginning to learn a little bit about what makes a home, and that home can be anywhere you are. There’s no set formula, no precedent that can’t be broken because home isn’t a static word it’s dynamic. It’s always changing, and I am too. And somehow I’ve managed to build and keep a home somewhere between the 17’s.