Home Sweet Home
Andrew: “You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.”
Sam: “I still feel at home in my house.”
I’ve always felt like Sam. For those of you who do not know this conversation it’s from the movie Garden State. For years I’ve often gone back to this conversation. For some reason it always stayed with me after seeing this movie because I was waiting for that moment that my home did not feel like my home. For me that feeling of home not being home signaled my need to move out of my house. I saw it as the coming of age. A rite of passage into adulthood. That feeling has yet to come.
For years I’ve been the only one from my friends and colleagues who still lives at home. I say that with great privilege and honor. But to this day I still don’t feel the way Andrew Largeman did in Garden State. My home still feels like my home.
Sure, I’ve outgrown the space completely i.e. I have way too much stuff. It’s as if it all multiplied over the years. It definitely happened after I came back home from college. I think my stuff reproduced, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is when I go home I still feel at home.
During the time that I worked at Rutgers University-New Brunswick I was commuting 100 miles a day via car. It was taxing. With traffic I often spent almost 2 hours in the car coming home. People often asked me why I didn’t just move. My response was always I have a loving home to go home to, why would I? To add context, I also did not want to go home to an empty apartment after doing the work of a Title IX Investigator. My home provided me with the love and reassurance I needed after a day of listening to survivors and their accounts of what had happened to them. I needed my home. I needed my family’s love.
Fast forward to my working at FIT. I still commute but let someone else drive. I take NJ Transit in and out of the city every day. S/O to my fellow #commuterlife people. But I still get the question, when are you going to move to the city? First of all living in the city is expensive! Second of all, why? Yes, commuting to Jersey via public transit from the City can also be taxing but again I get to go home. I don’t think I’ll ever be a City girl enough to live in the city. I like going back to suburbia. Back to my house. Back to my family.
I say all this to say that my home is still my home. There is no part of me that feels like I have to move out, but there is a part of me that is potentially ready to have and be responsible for my own space. I have had the privilege of my family’s love and shelter for so long that I feel it may be time to venture out on my own.
For one, I’d love to have more privacy. I mean I love my parents but it’s hard to have anyone over when you still live at home. Two, I want to prove to myself I can do it. There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with being on your own. Maybe not for you but for me, yes. I need to show myself that I’ve got this.
Now, you better believe I’ll be very close to my family. I don’t plan on being more than 20 minutes from them. They are very important to me. They support me through everything and I want to be close enough to home for their sake and my own. I want to be literally a phone call away. I want to be able to show up whenever I want and also in case of emergencies. ::knocks on wood for no emergencies::
As I get older so do they and I am very aware of that. Plus, wanting to be close to my family will always just be who I am and I refuse to let anyone make me feel less like an adult for it. I’ve often had to respond to commentary from others about why I still live at home. I answer with truth and kindness but also take none of it to heart. My choices are my own and I do not have to justify them to anyone. If this sentiment or post resonates with you I hope you know that as well. You only have to answer to yourself.
So….as I get closer to 31 I think I may finally venture out and get my own space but let’s be real I’ll be home chilling with my family more than a few times a week. I’m privileged enough to say I’ll have two homes not one. And I say may venture out. May. Who knows I may just chose to stay at home for a little bit longer.
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