Home*

Another winter break has passed. Christmas flew by and New Years passed like any other day. I’m sitting in the Indianapolis airport waiting for a flight to Boston. This was me last year except Michigan was just another state I’d never been to. Now my family lives there. Each of the past three winter breaks have been spent in different cities in different parts of the world all technically considered home at the time. Freshman year I was back in Zurich with all my friends from high school for most of the break. Last year I was a tiny town in Indiana that no one’s ever heard of with the family, the wrestling team and hicks chewing tobacco in pool halls. This year I was in a suburb outside of Detroit with the family, a new wrestling team and hundreds of strange Podcasts. I wonder where I’ll be next winter. I guess that’s part of the excitement.

I’ve gotten past the fact that seeing my friends from high school is a challenge because everyone is scattered around the world. I’ve gotten past the fact that it’s impossible to meet people my age during school holidays because everyone has their own friends. I’ve gotten past the fact that every time I go home I am in a place I know nothing about and wouldn’t be able to find my way back to my house if someone dumped me a mile away from it. All these things are normal now.

Home is not about the house I live in or the neighbourhood surrounding the house or the city the neighbourhood is in. Home is Springfield because Yai and gram live there. Home is Detroit because my family lives there now. Home is Zurich because all my high school memories are there and I could get from the bars to the concert venues with my eyes closed and it is where I grew up. Home is Boston because that’s where my friends are now and that’s where I spend most of my time and my mind automatically refers to my dorm room as home. Home is an airport. Home is my dad’s intricate notes and to-do lists left on the kitchen counter. Home is my mom’s spiral ham and carrot cake during the winter. Home is Joe lifting me over his shoulders and bench pressing me while I laugh and scream. Home is riding in a car with Steve singing along to punk songs and bitching about life while making fun of unexpecting civilians. Home is the bed that was passed down to me from my dad’s days as a bachelor and his old, pink Lazy-Boy I refuse to let go of. Home is Joe, Steve and I watching UFC, dad and I watching hockey and live music and mom and I watching home and self make-over shows. Home is ice skating and dad getting excited to play hockey and being able to keep up with other enthusiasts even though the kids he plays with leave him sore for days. Home is everyone making fun of Steve’s OCD, dad’s anal-retentiveness, mom’s exaggerated fears about kidnappers and child molesters, Joe’s high-school social life and the “imaginary world” I life in. Home is Steve yelling at everyone for using too much bandwidth. Home is Joe telling us “not to worry about it” when we ask who he’s texting. Home is reminiscing about all the places we’ve been and trying to guess all the places we will go. Home is comfortable and relaxing and clean and funny. Home is familiar even though I don’t know the names of the streets surrounding me. Home is entertaining even though there are only four people in the entire state that I know. Home is transportable and uncertain. Home is always an adventure. Home is friends and family.

*Actually written at 12:30 January 13th.