got moxie

being home, and having two homes

As soon as I got to my Mother’s house, I took advantage of all the space I had, the simple square footage of it all, and began going through boxes of stuff I had left behind, not caring where things landed. Right now the floor of my childhood bedroom is covered in clothes I didn’t think I’d need in New York, books that felt like torture to leave on the Ikea bookshelf my brother got me for Christmas one year. Shoes I knew I didn’t want to have to walk huge city blocks in. My life that I felt okay with not putting in suitcases. 

Since being home I’ve eaten enough burritos to last me at least a few months. I gave directions to both San Francisco and Oakland cabbies, then over-tipped them. I swam in a pool with my nephew. I stayed at one bar, in the same booth with an old friend and a new friend for five hours. I missed the last Caltrain out of San Francisco at 12:15am then hitched a ride from a friend who just happened to be in the city that night. I slept in my bed with my dog. I got drunk with my Grandmother. I breathed in the breezy, redwood-scented air then got emotional about it, not having realized how much of the mundane things about this state was what I missed almost as much as my family and friends.

Maybe if I were staying in California longer than four and a half days, I’d miss New York, but I don’t. I don’t miss the distance I wedged between the people that mattered most to me and myself. I’ve wondered, sometimes out loud, why I left. What was it in me that made me feel as though not leaving was no longer a choice? I know why I chose New York, but I don’t know that those reasons still hold the same power for me now that I’ve seen them with my own eyes or lived them in real life. 

What I know for sure is that leaving is going to be harder this time. I have a better understanding of what it is that I am leaving behind. New York was such a foreign concept to me the first time, and I was too curious about what I’d see and do to make much room for the sadness about leaving California. 

Four months has only barely been enough time for me to carve out a life for myself in New York, and I’m conflicted about going back. The good about home is outweighing the good about the New York that is in the process of becoming my other home. But, anyway none of these feelings matter because I go back to work this week. Back to school, back to subways and back to heat that makes me want to kill myself. This having two homes and dividing my life between them makes my heart delicate. 

I know how lucky I am to have some place to miss.