For the last few years I have been flying on Christmas Day. In my efforts to be fair, for the last 3 years I have spent December 24th with my boyfriend's family, then flown across the border to spend the 25th with my family (sans bf), and finally returned to the US for New Years Eve. This year, my boyfriend's Canadian roadtrip happened to include 3 full days in my hometown during the second week of December, so I decided to skip the Christmas Day airport experience (which is much more like flying on any normal day and not at all like that chaotic, festive experience in Home Alone) and ensure he puts in some much overdue time with his inlaws. My family agreed to a "pre-Christmas" - turkey, presents, and all - and it's been planned for this weekend. My life revolves around his hockey schedule, and now, so does my family's. #glamNHLlife NOT.
So anyway, I arrived "home" last night, but I suddenly feel a little uneasy using that word to refer to my parents' house...
My country is without a doubt my home. I am Canadian and have felt even more so ever since being bounced at the US border this summer (yes bounced! TIP: Always print out a copy of your return ticket, try to avoid traveling with a cat, and don't wear bright coloured jeans - no really).
My city is also my home. When I talk about my city, I talk about that wonderful place where I was born...the city where I learned to use public transit to visit my first boyfriend who lived an hour away and the city where I ran a weekly karaoke program with general psychiatry inpatients who discovered the most innovative (and often most dangerous) ways to manipulate a microphone. My city is where my nieces and nephews laugh and play and grow, and it's the place where I met my hubby-to-be.
But my parent's house? It just doesn't feel like home anymore. I'm not sure why and I'm not sure when it happened, but it makes me really sad. My [boyfriend's] apartment in the US sure isn't home and I don't have my own place in my hometown (because I'm unemployed and living off kind donations) so where does this leave me?
I totally stole this from a hockey wife's blog and I promise to give her credit once I find her page in my history... This quote so perfectly sums up how I feel right now. Maybe I should watch the movie...
From Garden State (2004):
Andrew Largeman: 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.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
Sam: [cuddles up to Andrew] Maybe.
