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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Where to Call "Home"

With the 4th of July coming up, I'll be going home this weekend to celebrate the holidays with my family.  On Sunday, I'm driving back to Ann Arbor, and when I get there, I'll be sure to let my mom know I made it home safely.  I always find that a little funny - I'm leaving home to go home.

Ann Arbor is where I live, so that makes it my home, right?  It's different than Urbana, where I lived for the school year but was home for the holidays and summer.  I'm here year round, for several years to come still.  But I still can't break the habit of calling my parents' house "home."

I think it's partially because I don't want to call Ann Arbor home.  The town isn't bad, and there's some things I really like about it.  Lately I've been discovering more and more of these things.  Which is good - if I have to live here, I better learn to like it.  But it has its flaws, and those are significant enough for me to know that this is not someplace I'd want to stay permanently to live and work and raise a family.

So after I graduate, where will "home" be?  Will I move back to the Chicago suburbs to be close to my family and friends?  Will I end up on the west coast, where jobs abound for both Joe and me?  Somewhere in Colorado where I can see the mountains I love every day?

It's a scary thought.  Urbana was only a couple hours from home, so it's even possible to make a trip there and back in the same day without too much trouble.  Ann Arbor is twice as far, so trips back and forth become less frequent, as do my vacation days.  As a result, I see my family less, my friends less, and it gets lonely.  Could I handle moving even farther away?

This is where one of my greatest skills comes into play.  I can just tell myself, "Oh you don't need to worry about that yet" and that's that.  After all, why spend time worrying about the future now when I still have years before I need to make those kinds of decisions?  Not that you shouldn't think about the future at all, of course.  I may not be worried about what specific job I want, but I'm still building skills and knowledge that will help me get any job I want when that's actually relevant.  So while it's not really a pressing issue, it's still a thought that crosses my mind as I make trips from "home" to "home."

Sorry, I think this post was pointless.

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