you CAN go home again

... though I'm not sure who you'll find in the mirror there.

On our yearly trip to Connecticut to visit my parents, I'm routinely struck by the transformation in myself that seems to happen almost instantaneously. There's just something about being in the house where I spent the biggest chunk of my childhood (six years in one place!!) that seems to bring out a different part of me.


Maybe I feel nostalgic for days gone by.
Maybe I get a little louder.
Maybe I find myself thinking like a daughter more often than like a mother.

I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I know that I feel and act slightly different when staying at my parents' house, and when you throw in an evening spent with the extended family of aunts, uncles, and/or cousins that was a constant presence in my childhood but who now all live far away from me, the me of the past comes out in full force.

It's more than a little ironic that the book I was reading during our four-day visit was Q: A Novel by Evan Mandery, an incredible piece of literary fiction that explored the concept that I'm very un-eloquently calling "alternate yous." Think of the different ways your life may have turned out if you had made just one significant different choice in your life. If I had not gone to Elmira College, I would not have met my lovely husband, and would most likely have never even traveled to Maryland, let alone opted to make my life here. Essentially I have my life, my love, my children, everything because of a scholarship that was too good to turn down.

But when I visit the home of my childhood, I'm somehow reconvening with the me before all this, the me who could have lived an infinite number of other lives. We all could go back to this place, this time before that life stage had even begun, and we could find common ground once again. In the laughter that's shared while tackling a sink of dirty dishes. In the roll-of-the-eyes at my dad's innate silliness. In the tears that my mom and I share when overwhelmed with emotion. In the life that used to be for me in this place.


Thoughtfully yours,