It's not like me to write more than once in a 24 hour period. It's usually days, weeks, before I get around to posting something new. But this whole concept of going home has been nagging at me. To the point where I recalled my friend's wedding this past summer - Melissa and Joe's song was "Feels Like Home To Me" from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Cheesy romantic comedy, but cute tune and perfect for them. I'd been tossing things around in my head but decided I needed to download the song.
You'd think I have no roots or something...it's quite the opposite. Yes, we moved twice when I was younger, but this southeastern part of PA has been home for 20 years now. I have a big family that's local, emotional support. I lived at school for a year but then commuted because of costs. I can visit my high school or college anytime and I do. I have a sense of personal history and of being able to go home to wherever I want to call home that day.
I toyed with the idea of busting out a few years after college, escaping to NYC or someplace, but then I realized I really was having a small breakdown of sorts and anywhere was better than here and that's not a solid enough reason to just pack my bags and find some other job and move to some other state. As if everything would be OK somewhere else. The demons wouldn't find me.
Those feelings did creep in on the heels of a second layoff, right around when I was 24 and trying to redefine myself as a working professional. When the world fell flat at my feet several times and I was struggling to find my new niche, demons manifest from hidden places and made me serious doubt myself. But I didn't do anything too crazy. I stayed somewhat grounded, knew this too would pass...if the feelings lingered for very long, I would revisit them. And they did pass, having been symptoms of something else. Physically, I stayed put. Emotionally, perhaps, the last several years have me roaming, searching, wondering.
I used to daydream of days of Deck the Walls gone by...missing the craziness of working with my then friend Rob, of being respected, being an equal. And yet, I knew why I left - I needed to grow and experience new things at 22. But when the world fell flat, I did miss that home, those connections.
When I started at Skylight, I didn't trust anyone. Everyone was a corporate traitor. Gradually I trusted some co-workers. Trust. It's a bad bad thing. It slowly sucks me in and the next thing I know, I'm completely wrapped up in a person, place or thing. Attached. So when I was laid off there, I missed it, wanted to go back to where I'd finally started to feel safe and connected.
It would be a good year and some time later before I felt safe at a place again. This time it would be at Baylin. As you can read from my last entry, it started the day I interviewed - Doylestown gave me that feeling. As you can also read, it went awry. It wasn't like that in the beginning...or even the middle. It was the bitter end. The last 4-6 months.
In all of these "places" there was a moment when I knew it was over, when it no longer felt like home, when I either chose to look for another job or had to. But going back to my earlier point of emotions...the gut wrenching cries aren't ever tied to the physical places...they are tied to the people, the connections, the symbolism of a place. To the trust I had in someone that broke.
The broken trust busts up the home and the lack of resolution always leaves me searching.
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