yesterday, i read a tweet from a woman that really struck a chord with me. she was basically saying how she needed to go on a journey to become who she wanted to be and that she couldn't do that at home. i can so identify with that.
as longtime readers and friends know, "home" has always been a bit of a tenuous concept for me. i actually wrote about this a couple of years ago and it still rings true.
there are those people who wonder(ed) why i didn't just move back home when my life started falling apart in earnest back in 2011. the simplest answer is that i don't really consider any of my siblings' domiciles as "home" for me. moving in with one of them would be disastrous. this is my life and i know it sounds incredibly selfish, but i need to live it on my terms. i can not afford to move back or look back. i have worked too hard during the past 20 years and some change to make myself into the person i am and i don't want to risk reverting to the person i was in high school when they still had a major influence on me. hell, the fact that i still haven't actually told them about everything that happened with the eviction and couch surfing and bouncing around should speak volumes. i mean it when i say that i love my family, but it's best if i continue to love them from a distance.
in hindsight, that stretch of time i spent couch surfing and quasi-nannying and housesitting and whatever else it took for me to get back "home" to chicago taught me a lot. it showed me once again that i have some of the most amazing friends on the planet. it reminded me that i am way more resilient and resourceful than i tend to give myself credit for. it was difficult and if you were around back then, you know there was crying and gnashing of teeth and i might've pulled out some of my hair and banged my head on both proverbial and literal walls. there were times when i could not figure out how the hell i was going to make this shit work. there were a lot of times when i thought i'd fucked everything up beyond repair and i might actually have to phone "home." that was enough to make me cry even more, to be quite honest.
chalk one up to my tenacity, or stubbornness, or both. some positive things happened and i made some steps forward and look at me now. i am hoping to be in a place of my own by my 40th birthday and there's no way i would have publicly committed to that kind of timetable a few years ago. hell, just reading that sentence has me freaking out a bit like "omg what if it doesn't happen by then?" it's ok. i am in a stable place and i have the luxury of time to figure out what i really want to do in terms of moving and i don't need to rush into anything.
this has been one helluva journey and if i'm truthful with myself, i wouldn't trade it for "moving back home" at all. no way. i think it laid a lot of the groundwork for the whole "this is all part of the work" thing i've been focused on this year. it was worth it. i'm proud of myself and thankful for y'all at the same damn time. :-)
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