I made it through another year.

More importantly, I made it through another few days. It was touch and go there, for a while. Things weren't looking so good. Things are looking much better now. Things are looking much better now. Maybe if I repeat it over and over again, it will come true.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home.

My girlfriend misses home quite a bit. Often, and dramatically. It has been very difficult for her to be so far from home, particularly during this holiday season. She is as much a homebody as she is a rebel. Her middle name is Dichotomy. Well, her second middle name is Dichotomy, which comes right after her first middle name, which is, Perfect For Me.

I can't remember the last time I missed home. Perhaps it was during Boy Scout camp; I remember feeling really homesick and crying in my bunk one night. I was probably around 13 or 14 years old. When I focus, though, on how I was feeling at the time, I think that I was just having a miserable time at camp; not able to find friends, unable to swim very well in the fucking freezing lake water, and constantly having to crap in an outhouse and eat shitty food and clean the showers. I think anyone living on a faraway planet full of bullies, frozen swim meets and warm milk is going to feel homesick.

When Firstname Perfect For Me Dictotomy Last Name tells me she's feeling homesick, I can't identify with her. For all you 10th grade English students, I can sympathize with her, but I can't empathize with her. A part of me wishes I could empathize with her, but only the part that wants to be like a normal person, because I know that normal people miss home.

I don't miss home. I think this is because I don't know where my home is. This is because I've never felt at home anywhere; or, because I've never made a home anywhere. What I mean is that I don't think this is an entirely unintentional phenomenon. I've lived in a total of twelve houses, not counting college dorms, in six different cities. This might not seem like a lot, but only three of those houses were strictly childhood homes. I did most of my growing up in a small town in upstate New York. From there I've spent between 2-6 years at each place, moving on from there to somewhere else. After my sophomore year of college, I never spent more than a few days at a time in the town where I did most of my growing up. I don't miss it. Most of my growing up was shamefully painful and I couldn't wait to escape.

I think I've felt most at home in Buffalo, NY. But I had a relationship with someone for about 10 years who hated that town and refused to ever consider moving back there. I think I had given up on missing it, seeing it as futile. But I think if I were to be homesick for a place, that would be it.

I do miss New York City quite a bit, but not in an active way. I think I miss it more simply because this shithole I'm living in right now is a shithole. The same person who kept me from Buffalo moved me from New York City against my will. Notify the Trend Police.

But, in essence, I really don't "miss" either one of those places. I also don't miss people whom I don't see around the holidays. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually glad to see "loved ones," etc., but there are very few people whom I actively "miss"; about whom I think at odd times and feel an emptiness. Mostly, it's people who've died or people with whom I don't feel I've spent enough time with. Most of the people in my life, I think I feel that I've spent plenty enough time with.

First Name Perfect For Me Dichotomy Last Name thinks that I've lived a sheltered life. Usually I take this as an insult, but I can see what she means. I'm a relatively careful person. I have relatively traditional views on things. But I think this is because I've spent a lot of time trying to fit in, in order to find a home. Feeling alone is not a good feeling. If I had a cool car and some guns and a funky hat, I could be called a renegade. But I don't. I'm just a guy who hasn't lived in any place that he's both liked and been allowed to live in.

As usual, I have no idea where this is going, other than to say that I'm happy that First Name Perfect For Me Dichotomy Last Name has stuck with me in this sorta home away from real home, and that she's kept me from killing myself. Because maybe before I die I can say that I can find a home worthy of being missed.


- posted by seanmh @ 11:08 AM