#latergram blog post style. Apologies for the delay.
It's our last day at Myrtle Beach and I'm sad to be leaving. I woke up with this unexpected feeling of melancholy that I haven't been able to shake.
When I get nervous or anxious or sad, I tend to get very quiet. It happens before a performance, any time I have to sing in front of people or give a speech, if I'm going to an event where I don't know a lot of people. Some people get overly chatty or irritable; I deal with it by getting very quiet.
It happened this morning. All the girls were chipper and drinking mimosas together and I couldn't think of anything to say. I thought maybe I was just tired, but then I realized I knew this feeling. So I came down to the beach- I felt like I might start I bring everyone else down. I think it was a good decision – there’s so much breathing room here. We have to leave for the airport soon, but I have a couple minutes.
There's hardly anyone out here and it's cool, quiet, and beautiful.
I've been walking, trying to "change my mood" and thinking about how displaced I feel. I don't really feel like I'm leaving to go home. I've lived in this same apartment in New York for 2 years now, but it still doesn't feel like home, not really. I'm comfortable there, it's familiar, I have friends and my own room (and a guinea pig, which like…how much more dedicated can you get?), but somehow it doesn't feel like home and I'm not sure why. I don't know what makes something feel like that. I imagine it’s the people - family. Which makes me think- maybe the only home that really feels like home is the one you grew up in, until you have your own family? Is that when you feel truly connected to a place again? I'm sure it's different for different people. I've heard people say that their group of friends is more of a family to them than anything they've ever had. So maybe for them this does feel like home - or maybe nothing ever has. I assumed that deep feeling of connection and establishment would evolve on its own out of something, just like it did growing up. You don't even know you're growing dangerously connected until you leave. But maybe now, it's something we have to make happen since we don't have parents to create it for us. Maybe it comes from making a decision to commit to something, someone. A place, a city, a person, a job and therefor a “hometown”. A friend said to me the other day that grownups always talk about how wonderful it is to be committed – to a marriage or home or city – and I imagine (hope) that’s true, but I doubt they remember how difficult committing actually was at the time. Maybe finding that “home” connection comes from biting the bullet and committing to something.
Our generations are very different in this regard. There was more of a specific path expected of our parents, but we “have the world at our fingertips”. It’s no longer: go to school, find a husband, get married and have children. It’s: go to school, get a job, then do whatever the hell you want! Get married or don’t get married! Start a business! Become a lesbian! Anything goes! For my family at least, college was expected. It was up to me where I would go, but that was the last stepping stone that was laid out for me. And while it’s wonderful to have complete control over your life, there’s some fundamental need that is met with the feeling of simply fulfilling a task that is expected of you. It’s clear, finite, and it feels good to live up to it. You can check it off a list. But now there is no list. Not even the subconscious or “suggested” list that past generations had – and it’s wonderful. And terrifying. We have full ownership of every. single. life. decision. It’s what we wanted. And I’m grateful, but God it’s easier to caveat every decision with an “out”. “Yeah, you know, I’m doing this for now… we’ll see!” Right now I feel about as committed to my East Harlem apartment as I do to this beach chair I'm sitting in. It's both exhilarating and isolating, not being "tied down" to anything of real consequence. Staying in this land of “I could get out at any time” is way less scary (less fulfilling?) than committing. But I have this sinking feeling that this middle ground doesn’t create a life that feels like home.
So. I'm feeling melancholy and missing my family and home. Wishing I could stay on this beach forever. In other news, I think I’m watching a little girl play on the beach for the first time in her life. She was nervous about all the sand at first, but now looks comfortable enough to have been born on the beach. She spent 2 whole minutes telling her friend about her brand new “bading” suit with watermelons on it. I know you probably shouldn’t take photos of other people’s children…. But you can’t tell who they are, and I thought it was such a special moment that I wanted to share with you.
Must go to the airport to head “home” J
I’ll keep you posted,
- d
