There’s something a smidge unsettling about going “home” and realizing it’s no longer really “home.”
When asked where “home” is I generally default to a generic “California” answer, as I grew up in San Diego, studied at UCLA, worked in LA, and finally moved to San Francisco for the last year and a half. While living in San Francisco… if someone there asked me where I was from I said “San Diego”, though if I was anywhere else in the world I would say “San Francisco.” Why do we do that? “Where are you from” is such an ambiguous question to ask people. You should really say “can i please have a brief history of your geographical choices?” to get the full picture of one’s living sitch, but I digress.
The point is, California is home. But these days going back to San Diego means going back to a town I haven’t lived in for 7 years. It means my parents’ new house and new neighbors, and none of my childhood friends. San Diego is home only because it’s where my parents are. If they moved, would it still be home!? Being in San Diego is lovely, but none of my things are there, and it always feels temporary. All of my friends are in San Francisco (in fact they’re the reason I moved there) and I guess I was eagerly awaiting a warm fuzzy envelope of home-ness upon landing. But upon perusing the city again I quickly remembered, I unfortunately hate San Francisco. It’s cold and grey and hilly and expensive and impossible to navigate and the opposite of beachy. That city never felt like home no matter how much rent I was paying. I left the city precisely because it DIDN’T feel like home.
And as I sit here, briefly back in San Diego at my parents’ house I realize… I’m so excited to finally be going back home. I’m exhausted of traveling, living out of suitcases and playing guest in what should be my home. I want my home. Home is what you make it, and today that means my one bedroom in Palermo… an entire hemisphere across the world, where it’s the wrong season and no one speaks my language. In Buenos Aires I’m relaxed, and I know my neighbors, my friends, my bars, my restaurants, my gym, my bike repair shop, and my routine. I have a job and a self-made support group, and I’m as excited to start my day as I am to come home at the end of it.
I suppose there is not really any point to this post besides solemn reflection. It was mainly a nice excuse to throw in a Carrie-Bradshaw-like… “sometimes I wonder, does everyone eventually find a home? If so, is it really so temporary that 6 months away can make you question everything? I can’t help but ask myself… are wanderers doomed to wander forever?”
Also, my friend Eli who spends a lot of time in Brazil shared this quote which I think is a great piece of thought…
The Tranqui Yanki 