I have often spoken about where my home is and where I feel like I belong. Anyone who knows me well will say I have no true home. That I belong no where and everywhere at the same time.
I have held a fondness for New Jersey, that being the place where I grew up and had all my first experiences in life. Asked if I would ever return the answer is an immediate "no".
I have no family in New Jersey, but I do have close friends. I have no family in Texas either, except for the one I created. Texas is the home for my children.
New Jersey holds my youth, from excited snow days spent ice skating on a frozen lake to my first job at the mall selling cookies for my father's company. New Jersey holds many firsts and lasts for me. The first time I spent hours walking along train tracks until the sun went down. The first snow fight, or jumping in a pile of colorful raked up leaves. The first cigarette I smoked in the woods by the YMCA with a friend.
Texas holds firsts as well. The first time I gave birth. The first time I noticed I replaced, "You guys" with "y'all". The first time I ate chicken fried steak (and I am still not entirely sure what that is).
Both places hold loves and heartbreaks for me. Both places hold memories of good and bad. In one I was a child in the other I became an adult.
As I write this I am in New Jersey visiting a friend for a few days. Talking a break from my Texas life, I have come back. Before coming here I thought of the friends I want to see and the things I would like to do. Places to revisit. Those places no longer belong to me.
New Jersey holds my past like the ghosts of Christmas's past. I could walk in to my favorite diner where I spent so many hours and all I would see is the booth where my friends and I sat and split a plate of cheese fries. I would see our ghosts as if they are all still sitting there frozen in time.
The hill where I went sledding is now built up and no longer a hill. Things have changed without me knowing about it, life has moved on and I did not move along with them. I moved on.
Texas keeps my life now, and my adulthood. Texas is where I have a career, my children, and friends. Even gone for a few days I notice that I miss them. Examining why I miss them I understand that it is in contrast to being here, in New Jersey, in my past.
If I was sitting on a beach somewhere I would most likely not be missing anything or anyone. Being here I am missing the youth I once had, and the present I now have that is not here.
I can enjoy this visit and make new memories here but they will be short lived, and over shadowed by what once was. I no longer know the highways and short cuts. I am no longer acclimated to the weather. It feels as if every gust of wind is saying, "This is not where you belong anymore."
My house in Texas may be selling shortly and I will move away from it. It is the house where I have lived the longest in my entire life, yet even it too has been telling me it is time to move on and that I no longer belong there.
I sit here, outside, looking at trees with leaves that have changed with the season. Vibrant colors I do not see in Texas, but took for granted when growing up with them. I know now that my work and my life here in New Jersey is done. I can visit friends, visit old haunts, but the wind will always be telling me I no longer belong.
When I return to Texas in a few days I will be going home. Back to the place where my life is. Where my present is.
Where, for now, I belong.
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