Young adults, freshly graduated college students, and anyone in their 20s are at last taking steps out of the door of their home: the home they’ve shared with family, even if the home was not always physical. The home is a place of returning, whether at the end of a long day or a long journey. Returning home is something we all do without thinking, it is something we take for granted, a solid guarantee. But, can we ever, truly, go home?
After all, the home has not changed, assuming physically, but spiritually, metaphorically, has the home not changed? Should your journey take you some 400 miles away from the place you first skinned your knees, made new friends with a toothy grin, and adorned yourself in school colors for a sports game, can you ever truly go home?With a nearly seven hour solo-drive ahead of me, I thought a lot on the idea of being able to go home. Physically, I was able to go home. Spiritually, I knew everything felt different. I walked through the kitchen door, and even though the house was my own, my parents involved in their usual fall tasks (blowing the leaves from the deck, in the basement digging out gloves and scarves) a piece of the puzzle was missing from my mind.
It was not until my solo return, a 400 mile journey, that I realized I can never go home again. It is not something I can help, I have changed, home has changed, but home and self grow together, if we let it. Home are the friends we hold in our heart, home is the significant other we hold dear, home is the family we love without hesitation. Home changes, we may never go home to the place we once had memorized, things change, people change, we change, but we change together.