There's No Place like Home

I flew home last week to go to my sister’s thesis show in Mississippi. Man. What a trip. Now, all I can think about is how homesick I am.

I hate admitting that. I hate admitting that I am homesick, because I remember when a girl I knew was living out here and she wrote some blog about being homesick, and she kept talking about how she wanted to move back to Memphis so that she and all of her “besties” could “raise babies together,” and I thought that was lame and disgusting and stupid, and I don’t ever want to come off like that.

Now that I’ve set THAT disclaimer, I can freely say that I am homesick for my culture. Now, it’s taken me a long time to figure out what that means, exactly, and even though I can’t articulate it, I know it when I’m around it.

It feels right.

I picked up my cap and gown two days ago. I also got my degree framed. I remember the day that I graduated from college, my sister said to me,

“This is the happiest day of your life. You’ll never have another feeling like this. You’ll never have to write a paper AGAIN!”

And I remember not feeling like that at all.

I hadn’t really felt like I’d done anything. I just felt like I got a piece of paper. I remember during the after party, I felt really humbled or something, because a lot of people came who wanted to show me they loved me and supported me, and I was kind of shocked to realize what a strong support group I actually had, but actually walking at graduation didn’t really do it for me.

When I got my master’s, I was proud, but it was sort of the same thing. I don’t really feel like I’ve done something amazing or whatever. I just feel like I’ve checked something else off my list, like I’ve just bought detergent or had my oil changed. Maybe I just don’t feel anything. Maybe I’m a robot. With a nice butt (a “FANTASTIC @$$!!!! That is for you, Anna).

So. I’m saying all of this to say, that I moved out to L.A. and got a master’s. I came out here because I’d wanted to live in L.A. my entire life. I’ve come out here, and now I can check it off my list.

And now I’m ready to go home.

I’ve thought that going back home would mean that I’ve failed. I thought it’d mean that I’ve half-assed a lifelong dream. I thought if I moved home, it would’ve meant that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hack it, I wasn’t strong enough or something. All I could think about was the “I told you so” speeches I got from EVERYONE before I moved out here, how they all said I’d be back. That’s what I’ve thought about. I’ve thought about failing. But now I see that all of that is a crock of crap. I’ve done what I came here to do. I came out here, I got a master’s, I’ve “lived the dream,” I’ve hung out with celebrities, I’ve been to amazing events and met wonderful people and done stand up comedy and done things that lot of people could never do… And I’m ready to go home now.

I sort of feel like Forrest Gump. He runs and runs and runs and runs, and has this huge following of people whose lives he has changed, and then he just says, out of the clear blue,

“I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now.”

Now I get it.

I don’t want to talk too much about my work, but it has caused me severe emotional burnout. Severe. I’ve watch my boss jam her liver spotted finger into a grown man’s chest and make him cry. I’ve watched her verbally assault people time and time again and scream at them, asking why they are so “f-cking stupid.” She’s a rage aholic. I’ve never seen anyone so addicted to raw, sulphurous, venomous rage. It’s bizarre. I didn’t grow up in a yelling, screaming household, so this has been completely unfamiliar to me. And after awhile, it broke my spirit.

After my boss will make our clients cry and I watch them turn into puddle on the floor and my boss will scream, “I can’t deal with this f-cking idiot. Rachel, you deal with them.” I’ll sit in my office with a client while they cry quietly, and after they feel safe, they tell me their story. I’ve heard everything from divorce to abortion to drugs to the death of a child. You name it, I’ve heard it. I tell you this to give you a glimpse of my typical, 10-hour work day. It’s hell.

After I went to Mississippi to see my sister, I drove down to Louisiana. I needed to see my grandparents. I was soul sick and I needed a shot.

I picked up some dinner at the grocery store and drove to my Memaw’s house. Just driving down her street, that same street that she’s always lived on, I felt safe. I felt like I was home.

As soon as I walked into her house, I started crying. I’m even crying a little bit while I type this now. I just fell apart. I put the lasagna in the oven and sat at her kitchen table and I cried. I told her that I was done. I told her that L.A. had kicked my ass and handed it right back to me, and I was in a dead-end job that had completely made me give up all hope, and I’d spent all this time and money on a degree just to be in a job that I HATE, and dating has been a nightmare and I’m alone and empty and done. And I cried some more.

My Memaw hugged me like she does. She just hugged me. And she prayed with me. And I kept on crying until I had nothing left anymore. And then she said this.

“Now Rachie Pooh, you know that you are a feathers and sequins kind of girl. Now what does that have to do with divorce and abortion?!”

It was the most practical thing I’d heard in about two years.

I think I’ve spent a lot of time trying to be something I’m not. Actually, I don’t think I’ve done that- it isn’t that I’ve tried to be something I’m not as much as I haven’t been able to just embrace who I really am.

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Dolly Parton. Then somehow down the line, I became a counselor, and I wear a bunch of frumpy, homely business casual close to work, and I come back home every day to lie on the floor and be depressed. What the eff happened to wanting to be Dolly?

The last guy I dated couldn’t handle dating me because my personality was too strong for him. When I was in the seventh grade, my Sunday school teacher told me I was the worst kid she’d ever taught. When I was in graduate school, my professor wrote me a note to tell me to stop being “so funny” when I made presentations. All of these messages made me feel a little bit ashamed, like maybe I needed to sort of calm it down and be more tame and average and safe.

Memaw taught me to say “Jam it” to people who want me to be less than everything that I am.

As I sat with her in her kitchen, I started to remember who I was. I started to remember that I can be obnoxious and make jokes and drive people crazy but also be thoughtful and kind and make people feel appreciated. She made me remember.

I spent a lot of time with family when I was home. Paw Paw and I went fishin down on Lake Tickfaw. I felt at peace for the first time in years. We fell asleep on the boat under a mossy tree. I got sunburned so bad that my face felt hot for a week. The incredible thing here is that I fell asleep. I actually slept. I slept every single night while I was home. I haven’t slept in years.

My aunt and I hung out at her house and danced like crazy to Michael Jackson on the back porch. We danced around while all of her dogs were barking and jumping around us. I had a coke with my cousin while he was recovering from a car accident and we just enjoyed being together. I saw my best friend from back home and spent time with her and her husband and saw their new house. I was around people who loved me just as I am.

I also met a nice guy. A genuinely nice guy.

Being home reminded me of who I was. I had some unfinished business to take care of when I was in Louisiana.

To set the stage, here, my dad gave me the OK to go to LSU two weeks before school started. TWO WEEKS. I had very little time to prepare and make my move down there. I got placed in some sort of horrendous ghetto housing, and I didn’t even care, because all I wanted to do was go to LSU.

So, I’m on a campus tour, and I see my new dorms, and they look like something out of Spanish Harlem, and I don’t even care because I just want to go to college so bad that I can barely stand it. My first choice had been East Laville dorms, but I wasn’t able to live there for a variety of factors. I don’t want to get into all of them because it’s irrelevant. Anyway, I came back from the tour, and my dad says,

“I want you to come with me. I need to show you something.”

So we walk down to East Laville in front of room 109. I didn’t know what was going on. My dad said,

“Honey, this is your new room.”

I told him to stop messing with me.

He wasn’t.

He had recognized the lady who was working at the housing desk. He knew her when he was in THE FIRST GRADE. Anyway, her name was Irene, and she hooked me up. Just like that. I got exactly what I wanted, and my roommate freshman year became my best girl friend.

I tell this story because when I was in Louisiana, I had to have a come to Jesus meeting with Jesus.

I was driving home from my best friend’s house and I drove to the LSU campus. I drove right up to East Laville and turned my car off. And I started to pray. I told God I remembered what He did. I remembered how despite being told that I couldn’t go to LSU and I couldn’t live in East Laville, I got both, despite impossible circumstances. I told Him that I remembered. I told him that I needed help. I told him I couldn’t keep working in this job in this environment with these people. I told him I was in over my head in L.A. and I was lost and confused and empty and broken. I told Him I needed help, and I remember who He is. We had a meeting. I sat there in my car for a long time and remembered walking up those steps a thousand times as a freshman, and every time feeling so fortunate that I got what I wanted. I told God I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, but I needed help, and He’s the only one who could pull me out. I laid down my stone of remembrance.

I kept postponing my return to L.A. Every day I thought that maybe I’d come back, but every day I’d stay one more day in the South.

I don’t know what I’m doing right now, but I know that there is something else for me. I know it isn’t this. I know it isn’t working in an environment where every day I come home and want to fall apart. But something’s coming. I don’t know what it is, but I'm not ashamed about going home anymore. Maybe that's exactly what I need. I came out to L.A. and did what I need to do. And now, I'm ready to go home.