About three weeks ago it really hit me that we moved. We had been living here for two months, but it wasn’t until I had an itch to see my sister—and realized I couldn’t—that it sunk in. Even in St. Paul, where I had to drive forty-five minutes to see Hannah, I could make the trip, spend time with her, and be home for dinner.
Sometimes I feel a tightening in my chest that I know can only be loosened by spending time with my family. And it’s funny, because I’m always glad to be home afterward. It’s as if I see them in order to make sure they haven’t forgotten me, to reaffirm that I’ve made the right choice in growing up and moving out, and to make sure that life hasn’t changed too much. And so, when I couldn’t hop in my car and perform this ritual, I began to wonder if we had made a mistake moving here.
My mom and I started making plans for the future (so we wouldn’t have to think about the present) and Chris and I even talked about moving again next year instead of waiting three years like we had planned. And I felt better, and we waited for the next three weeks to pass until we would be going home—back to Minnesota.
We returned from Minnesota last night. Most of the ride we listened to the Vikings-Packers game from Landau Field, scanning the AM frequencies each time we drove out of range and heard the radio announcers’ voices begin to crackle. We didn’t leave until 3:30 (would have been 4:30 if not for daylight savings) and so we drove much of the way under the night sun, through a pink and sometimes fiery red twilight sky.
As we passed out of the city and back into the countryside of southern Minnesota, I realized that I do not miss St. Paul like I thought I did. This thought was one I had begun to entertain upon our arrival back in St. Paul the Friday before. As the bright city lights came closer, billboards began to appear. And street lights. And then the skyline, which I had remembered to be beautiful. When I was younger and we drove into the cities, the buildings and lights had moved me. But when I moved there, they became commonplace, and the feeling no longer took me. I thought that moving away, I would perhaps once again feel this feeling, but instead I felt something else. I missed the country. As soon as we were out of it, I missed it. I could not see the star-filled sky; I couldn’t see the fields of rolling green and brown. The buildings were drab and gritty in comparison. And this didn’t feel like home.
It’s comforting to be at my parents’ house. This is my home. Whatever other home I have, I still feel at home when I’m there. But I don’t think this has to do with a place. It isn’t the house that is my home, and it’s not the town—although these things are familiar and nostalgic. But it is my family that I miss, and if they were here in Vermillion, then I would have no other home at all. St. Paul is no longer a home because it is neither where we live nor where my parents live, and so I feel no connection—or perhaps, only one to my past.
I’m sitting on my couch now, in my sun-filled living room, missing my family, but feeling at home. At home in this house, at home with my own small family, at home in Vermillion, at home in South Dakota. At home, on my own, in a new part of my life, in a new part of this world. And instead of regret, I feel excited for my future. And most importantly, I feel excited for my present.
[...] remember, as I wrote about in previous blog posts (like this one), feeling lonely, missing my family, grappling with living more than six hours from my family. But [...]