Home, sweet home

As I write this, I am actually sitting on an airplane. My iPod was not sufficiently charged and died only a few minutes into the Spring Awakening soundtrack, and since my flight was delayed, I read the entire April issue of Lucky while I waited at gate C12. Fortunately, when the flight attendant just announced that we could use approved electronic devices, I remembered my laptop was right under my feet, and alas - my boredom was subsequently saved by iTunes and Microsoft Word (no Internet…I suppose that would be a pretty serious national security threat, but wouldn’t it be nice?).

I’m flying home from a long weekend at home in Atlanta. I hadn’t been home since Christmas, so it was a welcome break to see my family, enjoy the warm weather and of course drink plenty of sweet tea. I hit all the major requirements for a weekend in Georgia – a trip to Target that somehow ended with over $100 worth of merchandise on the conveyor belt (but really – how could I pass up two pair of wedge sandals, a new summer black purse and some value-priced cosmetics?), trips to Chili’s, Chick-fil-A and Willy’s (worth repeating – got sweet tea at all three), an appointment with Allison for a spring hair cut, a hike up Kennesaw Mountain with the fam to enjoy the 88-degree weather, and a few visits with my grandparents. I also caught up on my sleep, aided by my now-seemingly-enormous full size bed.

I was asked several times throughout the weekend about my concept of ‘home’…which city feels like home, does my parents’ house still feel like home, am I settled into New York enough now for it to feel like home, and even a half-way joking slap on the wrist when I called my little apartment home instead of our house in Marietta. It made me think a lot about what and where I consider home…even now as I just read back over what I’ve written so far, I noticed that I unintentionally wrote the sentence, ‘I’m flying home from a long weekend at home.’ Clearly, I have some sort of schizophrenic home complex that must be sorted out, if nothing else, for grammar’s sake.

home n
1. the place where a person, family or household lives
2. a family or any other group that lives together
3. where somebody was born or raised or feels he or she belongs

Lucky for me, Microsoft Word’s dictionary just helped me figure out (or perhaps further muddled) the home question. Definition 1 – my person lives in New York; my family lives in Atlanta. NYC, 1…ATL, 1. Definition 2 – again, family lives in Atlanta, but my group, which I suppose is composed of Leslie and myself, lives together in New York. Updated score, 2-2. And definition 3 – perhaps the trickiest one of all – I was obviously born and raised in Atlanta, and I feel that I belong in Georgia, in the South…but yet I feel that I belong in New York, too. And the game ends in a tie, 3 all. This, my friends, is where my schizophrenic home complex comes from, why, despite my normally impeccable grammar, I wrote a confusing sentence about flying home from home, or something to that effect.

So, while it may not be as clear cut as you would like, I believe the dictionary actually did give me the answer. I have two homes. Plain and simple…in my life, home is no longer an either/or question; it is a both/and. As I've written before, Atlanta is the home that gave me roots, and New York has become the home where I grew my wings.

Marietta, GA will always, always be my home. I love Marietta. I love Atlanta. I love my parents house where I grew up, their fireplace where I took prom pictures, the driveway where I got my first car, the deck where mom and I play Scrabble, the neighborhood pool and tennis courts where I used to play. I will always feel like I belong at my Marietta home…because home to me is where I grew up, where I’ve celebrated every Christmas morning and Thanksgiving dinner, and where I built a lifetime of memories.

But right now, in my twenty-something year old life, I am blessed to have a second home. It in no way replaces the home where I grew up, the home that is my family…it’s an extra home, a bonus gift. I’m one of the few lucky ones in this world who get to get on an airplane and fly from one home to another, because according to definition 3, New York is also my home, because right now – today – it’s where I feel like I belong. I miss my family and friends, I miss the Chick-fil-A’s and the sweet tea and the Targets and the opportunity to begin an email ‘Hey y’all,’ without getting mocked. But for today, New York is where I belong; it’s where I know I’m supposed to be, and that makes it my home.

I think we’re about halfway through the flight right now. Fitting, I suppose, that as I write about my two homes, I’m straddling the worlds of both. Other than this very moment, though, I can’t live in both home...only on a plane, and only in my dreams. So I will continue to ambivalently use the word ‘home’ to describe both New York and Atlanta in the same sentence…because both places will always feel like where I belong.


“Where we love is home.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr