convention interlude: a return home

so, i know i’m very much behind on posting about my experiences in philadelphia, but it’s difficult to prioritize when i’m busy catching up with friends and spending time with family. and though i’ve still a few more days to chronicle, i wanted to take a break and share some about my first trip in three years back to my home town….

i’m reminded of a quote from the movie gross pointe blank;

“you can never go home again, but you can shop there.”

while not entirely accurate of my experience, it does, i think convey a certain emotion which i’m now feeling. in so many ways, my childhood home and my neighborhood are exactly how i remember them.

but in so many ways, this place is foreign to me; like visiting the past in a dream. familiar landmarks have aged almost beyond recognition, or have been replaced altogether. streets and highways interchanges are strange. returning home from lawrence late the other night, i got lost. sure, it didn’t take me too long to find my bearings, but the fact that it happened in the first place was quite unsettling. and it’s that unsettled feeling that’s led me to write this here.

i always knew, at least in part of my brain, that this would eventually happen, though i guess there’s no amount of time, no extent of one’s brain that can prepare you for the eventual realization; this place is no longer my home.

i’m reminded of yet another movie, garden state, in which the main character describes the idea of home, what it is and what it means.

“you know that point in your life with you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? all of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put all your shit, that idea of home is gone.”

i’ve had that thought and those feelings in the past, but somehow this time it was more pronounced. more acute. though i think of honolulu as my “home,” that word doesn’t hold the same meaning anymore. indeed, that idea of home is gone.

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