My Yellow Brick Road

I must confess, this autumn has brought me very little. I am home, and am not happy. I have an apartment here. As mildly comfortable as it is, it is just in the wrong town. Friends "at home" are not happy. One is frustrated with the remainder of his academic career, one is falling a part at the seams, one lost her husband and one...well, nothing's changed for him, and that's the very problem to begin with. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that my friends can't go on without me there, but I am truthful enough to say that all of us were happier a mere six months ago.

I often think about my last two weeks there. How I spent it learning to play frisbee golf, nearly throwing out my shoulder in the process. I spent my days at my old job, trying not to tear up every time I realized I did something for the last time. How can someone get sentimental over stapling 20 PowerPoint presentations together? I did. I gave and received close to a hundred hugs. Each one was tighter as it got closer to my two weeks being up. I camped at my two best friends' houses, recording how her hair reflects in the late summer sunlight or how when he smiles, it peaks a little higher on his right side of his face. I wrote a few letters, to the people that meant the most to me there. And I tried my best to let them go, truly believing that I had to, if I wanted to achieve anything here. That if I said goodbye, I could turn a chapter in my life and start over, again.

I was wrong. A few weeks ago, I learned that the only people I can depend on, through thick and thin, are my family and a handful of people I left at home. They're the ones who comforted me when I was at my worst, they were the ones who sent cards, funny text messages, emails containing smiley faces. And now, they're the ones telling me it is ok if I come home. That now I really do have the chance to do anything I want.

The day I left, my brother rode up with me. The whole drive, he sat beside me, jabbering mindlessly, doing his best to keep me distracted that with every song on the radio that ended, I was farther from where I belonged. I knew it, he knew it. I think we all knew it. I ate dinners with my family, spent evenings reading, trying to write. Trying, being the operative word. I imagined I was Dorothy, trusting that a mythical yellow brick road had brought me here for a reason. All along, I knew that yellow brick road of mine was going in the wrong direction. Because I missed home.

It hurts my mom and dad when I call the other place home. It confuses people who know I grew up here when I call the other place home. It makes me smile when I drive into the other places' city limits though, a fog lifts, and I know I'm home there. My heart, almost all the people I love unconditionally are there. And now, I think it is only a matter of time until I am, as well.