My drive home is four hours on a good day, sometimes east and sometimes west. Four hours on one highway,but to two different places. I leave home to go home. I leave Westchester and tell my friends I am going home.
I leave Madison and catch myself telling my parents I am going home.
I used to correct my parents or stop myself when I started saying home referring to going back to school. I would tell them this is my home. Almost reminding them that I was just as much a part of the family as the rest of them, since I am the only one who doesn’t live at home. It used to sadden me, thinking they live their daily life without me, feeling the need to remind them I am still here.
But now I embrace it. They never forgot that I was a part of the family or even that my residential address belongsto my parents. They just know that for nine months out of the year, this chapter of my life doesn’t belong to this town.
They never forget, quite the opposite. My mother finds comfort going in my room when I am not home and theworld around her is shaking, as if I will return to the unmade bed later that night. She talks to the dog… that I got for Christmas when I was 15, in a way of bonding over my absence. Sometimes she will call me to tell me the dog missesme, in her own secret way of sharing her feelings.
My father stays up to date on all the games. But I will know there is a storm coming before I check the weather app, because a piece of his heart is wherever I am. Some people get notifications from the weather app. I get a text message from Dad. He may not know what I am doing that day, but he will know what the weather will be even if I don’t.
Sometimes I will get pictures from my sisters, or suggestions on which trip we should go on. They fly for free, andlive off our parents, so usually I must decline their offer as they don’t know what bills are.
The younger one likes to complain about which teacher talked about me today, even after being out of their classfor six years. Then she brags about which athletic accomplishment of mine she is so close (but so far) from beating.
I hear Mom and Dad every night; they call before they go to bed.
My family and childhood friends live in that town, and I have a good job there. It is the perfect young adult fun summer job. I work on the lake that I grew up on, I get to watch the sunsets every night at work. The same sunsets Igrew up watching in my yard, snuggled up with my parents and sisters after we showered from spending the whole day in the lake.
It’s truly such a fun time being home, especially in the summer. My friends and I all work in the food serviceindustry, so we usually go into work between 9 to noon, and get out between 10 to 1. After work we drive around, go fishing or swimming, have a fire, or accomplish all of that, go to sleep, and then just repeat it. The only part that gets old is work.
Since we work on the beach strip if the weather is bad, we get cut, and then we either start our night plans early, gobridge jumping, or jet skiing Doing this forever would be my equivalent of a fairytale.
Home, the other nine months, is in a house with seven females. Yes, seven. We built this home, not in the sameway we do DIY projects back home, but in the way of creating a space that belongs to us. We go to school, work, and compete in college athletics.
Transforming into adults together, deep talks, testing all our limits, breakups, new love interests, good news, bad news, advice.
